Australia cancels Belt & Road agreement with China, says it goes against national interest

Australia on April 21 announced that it has cancelled the controversial Belt and Road (BRI) agreement with China saying it goes against its national interest. In an official order, the Scott Morrison government scrapped the agreement signed between the state government of Victoria and the National Development and Reform Commission of China, which was signed on October 8, 2018. The Australian government additionally also cancelled a framework agreement signed between the two sides on October 23, 2019. 

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said that the BRI agreement has been cancelled under the Commonwealth’s new foreign veto laws. She informed that this scheme requires the federal government to cancel agreements that state, territories, local governments and universities enter into with an overseas government if they contradict the country’s national interest. Payne further added that she considered the agreement to be “inconsistent” with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations. 

The BRI was initiated in 2013 and it is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s grand plan to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime trade networks to create new routes for China. The Sydney Morning reported that the decision to cancel the deal was made because the Morrison government and national security experts were concerned that China was using the agreement with Victoria as a propaganda win to claim that the state government had broken ranks with Australia’s China policy. Moreover, the Australian government is also worried that China was using the BRI to load up poorer countries with debt and reduce Australia’s influence in the region. 

China-Australia relations 

Meanwhile, the cancellation of the BRI agreement could now further increase tensions between Canberra and Beijing. The relations between the two nations have already been in a downward spiral since April last year when Canberra infuriated Beijing by proposing an independent international inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Australia has also been locked in an ongoing trade war with China for several months, which has seen China slap sanctions on various Australian products. Unofficially, China has even banned Australian imports of coal, sugar, lobsters, barley, wine, copper and log timber since November 2020. 

(With inputs from ANI)