1.25 billion Australian dollars (760 million euros) is the amount of Australian wine exports to China last year.
This makes the Miliau empire the largest export market for this product.
A situation which Xi Jinping wished to take advantage of to put pressure on Australia.
Read also: The Pacific trade duel continues, China taxes Australian wine
Indeed since Saturday China has applied heavy taxes (between 107% and 212%) on Australian wines.
The official reason?
Australia would trade dumping.
According to Beijing, Australian wines are sold in China at lower prices than the Australian domestic market in an attempt to crush competition.
This practice is condemned by the WHO, which in turn authorizes the countries which are victims of it to apply “
anti-dumping
”
taxes
to defend national production.
Allegations strongly rejected by Australia, which has been able to count on the support of many countries.
The US National Security Council, which reports to the President of the United States, said in a tweet that it would serve Australian wine.
“
Australian wine will be showcased at a White House holiday reception this week.
Too bad for wine lovers in China who, because of Beijing's coercive tariffs on Australian winegrowers, will miss some,
”the official NSC account tweeted on Tuesday.
This initiative was also followed by the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs which said in a tweet that it would also serve Australian wine.
On Tuesday, an international coalition of elected officials, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), also rushed to the aid of Australian winegrowers via a social media campaign, calling for more Australian wine to be consumed to counter the "
intimidation
" from China.
This alliance, which has 200 deputies from 19 countries, asked its fellow citizens, in a video, to consume Australian wine, as a sign of solidarity with Canberra.
Among the members of this alliance is British Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay.
"I'll drink this!"
Replacing a single bottle of wine this month with one from Australia will send a clear signal that we stand together and that we will not be intimidated, ”
he said in a tweet.
Also a member of IPAC, German environmentalist Reinhard Bütikofer went so far as to write on the same social network that Australian wine was a new weapon against Chinese imperialism.
"
Every time you drink Australian wine this winter, a part of Chinese wolf warrior will die,
" he tweeted on Tuesday.
An expression that refers to Beijing's particularly aggressive diplomacy.
Whether or not they are true, the accusations of dumping and the new taxes applied by Beijing are a way for China to put pressure on Australia in a context of strong diplomatic tensions between the two states.
Between Coronavirus and tensions around 5G, diplomatic relations have deteriorated sharply in recent months.
At the end of April, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for the opening of an investigation into the health crisis linked to Covid-19, the first cases of which were identified in Wuhan in China.
What strongly annoy Beijing.
Then, at the end of August, the island-continent excluded the Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE from contracts to set up the future 5G infrastructure, in the name of national security and in accordance with the incentives of the United States.
Read also: Australia regrets the "unnecessary deterioration" of its relations with Beijing
For its part, China, Australia's largest trading partner, has not remained inactive.
It has taken action against Canberra, including suspending imports of a large number of Australian agricultural products, including beef, barley and timber and now wine.
