Australia - An American Lackey In Trade Spat?

Can Australia survive a trade war against China?

A new kind of trade war may be brewing in the East as tensions between China and Australia increased drastically over the past few weeks. Last week, China imposed anti-dumping duties of up to 212% on Australian wine, the latest in a slew of measures curbing imports from coal and copper to barley. This led to the Australian government hinting over the weekend that it might bring a formal case against China at the World Trade Organisation.

Tensions then escalated further after a Chinese Foreign Ministry official tweeted a fake photo of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child, referring to alleged to war crimes. This led to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison reprimanding China and calling for the country to apologize.

So what's the background of this conflict and where could it go? We speak to Dr Pradeep Taneja to find out.

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