China-Australia relations: PM Scott Morrison tells business sector no compromise for ‘what we stand for’
- Morrison tells business community Australia will not compromise its core interests in escalating trade row with China
- Former diplomats and observers say Australian business community has failed to lobby for more constructive bilateral engagement with China
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has told Australia’s business sector that the country should “never apologise” for being itself, after he was asked what can businesses do to manage their trade with China amid bilateral tensions between the two countries.
Speaking at the online annual meeting of the Business Council of Australia, Australia’s most powerful business lobby group, Morrison said Australia would not compromise “what we stand for” and the right to speak out.
“If Australia just being itself is the cause for tensions, then that’s not something that we can change and so we need to be able to push through that and continue to hold to those perspectives in a polite and respectful way,” he said on Thursday in response to the question from Australian-listed grain handler GrainCorp, which is an exporter to China.
“Being Australia is something we should never apologise for,” he added.
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Morrison said the complaints were misconstrued and that while Australia’s positions on matters like national security had not changed over the past two decades, China had.
“It was a very different China back then,” he said. “You wouldn’t have seen that list 15 years ago.”
While Australia had always been prepared to “pick up the phone”, Morrison said he was not ready to attend a meeting with China that would “trade away” any of Australia’s interests. He also denied Australia colluded with other countries against China.