Australia has faced down China’s trade bans and emerged stronger

WHEN China gDP. WTO launched a campaign of economic coercion against Australia in 2020, Communist Party bosses thought they had crushing leverage. The economies of the two countries—resource-rich Australia and commodities-hungry China—were complementary and closely connected. By massively curbing shipments of everything from timber to coal, lobsters, barley and wine, on pretexts including exaggerated concerns about trade practices and pest infestations, China imposed a A$24bn ($16bn) hit on Australia, representing 5.5% of its total annual exports. Yet it did not succumb. And like a surfer surviving a shark attack with no more than a lightly gnawed board, Australia is now emerging from three years of Chinese bullying in remarkably good shape.Its exports briefly suffered under the strictures, then surged—culminating last year in Australia’s biggest-ever trade surplus, equivalent to more than 7% ofAnd the trade blocks, imposed after Australia’s then-conservative government dared call for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, are coming off. On May 18th, after a meeting between the two countries’ trade ministers in Beijing, China lifted a de facto ban on Australian timber. (“Serious study” by quarantine officials had allayed its concerns about bug infestation, explained Xiao Qian, China’s ambassador in Canberra.) Since January, Chinese importers have been quietly buying Australian coal: in the first quarter of 2023 Australia sent them A$1.2bn-worth of the stuff. Australia’s centre-left Labor government says cotton and copper exports are also resuming. China is reviewing tariffs on barley, Australia having suspended its case against them at the World Trade Organisation ().