China breaks up economic dialogue with Australia due to its ‘current attitude’ and ‘cold war mindset’

On Thursday, ties between China and Australia deteriorated even further, with Beijing announcing that it has “indefinitely” halted all operations under a high-level economic dialogue with the island country.

The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission announced the decision regarding the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue system blaming Australia for the breakdown of dialogue, which was set up in 2014.

Beijing appears to be retaliating specifically to the Australian government's suspension of two agreements between Victoria and China as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

The Chinese commission’s statement read as, “Recently, some Australian Commonwealth Government officials launched a series of measures to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of cold war mindset and ideological discrimination.”

The Australian government is also said to be seeking new security advice in relation to the Darwin port, which is leased to a Chinese-owned firm called Landbridge, with some media sources speculating that the company could be forced to sell due to national security concerns.

It was unclear what effect the decision would have on the bilateral trade, which had already declined due to Beijing's retaliatory actions.

Following Australia’s decision to keep out Chinese telecom firm Huawei from its 5G network and eventual call for an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19 outbreak, had already created a crack in the bilateral relations. With Beijing imposing tariffs on Australia’s main industries such as coal, wine, barley among others.

This was also probably fuelled by Australia’s participation in the QUAD or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue which is viewed largely as an “anti-China group”.

The announcement was described as "disappointing" by Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan, who said that Canberra was still open to talks.

Following the reports , the Australian dollar weakened against the US dollar, coming close to breaking 77 cents after trading around 77.47 cents the day before.