Australia has taken a major initiative in its bid to challenge Chinese hegemony. It is all set to bring in tough and painful sanctions in a swift action that will completely decouple the Australian economy from China. With this, the economic warfare that started between China and Australia last year seems all set to be ending with Canberra’s victory.
Australia adopts Magnitsky Sanctions Rules:
On Thursday, Australia passed new rules that paved the way to sanction those accused of committing serious human rights violations. In doing so, Australia has become the latest US ally to pass a law styled after the U.S. Magnitsky Act.
In a media release, Foreign Minister Marise Payne stated, “The reforms will enable Australia to sanction individuals and entities responsible for, or complicit in, egregious conduct, including malicious cyber activity, serious human rights abuses and violations, and serious corruption. Australian governments will be able to establish further thematic sanctions regulations in the future, including in relation to serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
Payne added, “The reforms will ensure Australia can take timely action, including with like-minded partners where it is in our national interest, to impose costs on, influence, and deter those responsible for egregious situations of international concern, wherever they occur in the world, while minimising impacts on general populations.”
What are Magnitzky-styled laws and why has Australia adopted them:
Magnitsky-styled laws are modelled after the Magnitsky Act passed by the United States of America in 2012. The Act was named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Moscow detention centre in 2009, after accusing Russian government officials of corruption.
Thereafter, other US allies like Canada, the European Union and the U.K. have updated their sanctions rules on similar lines for improving their ability to target human-rights abusers.
Australia’s move to bring its sanctions rules in line with those of the U.S. however has a clear China angle. The Sino-Australia relationship has got irreparably strained and Canberra has come much closer to its ideological ally, the United States of America. This is why Australia also became part of a new security partnership with the US and the UK, called AUKUS.
The security partnership in the Indo-Pacific seeks to develop the nuclear-submarine capability for Australia and deter China. It is therefore only natural that Australia is using a Magnitsky-styled law to further push back against China.
Within Australia, there were also some concerns about the inadequacy of the previous sanctions rules when it came to punishing human rights abuses. Now, given the level of concern that Australia has expressed over the human rights situation in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, it is only natural that Canberra needs a new law to address human rights abuses by the Chinese State.
How Australia has survived the tariffs war against China:
Today, Australia has introduced a new sanctions regime that targets China. Canberra is showing that it is not too deeply concerned about its economic relationship with China.
Australia has shown enough resilience in the background of a broad tariffs war against China. Even after Beijing imposed several tariffs and trade bans, the Australian economy didn’t suffer any drastic consequences. As it turned out, the Australian economy emerged very resiliently in the face of Chinese aggression. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg even said the Chinese government failed to seriously impact the country’s economy through a series of punitive measures on exports.
While trade between China and Australia fell by about 5.4 billion Australian dollars ($4 billion) in the first half of 2021, compared to the previous year, Frydenberg said that loss had been mostly made up by a 4.4 billion Australian dollar ($3.27 billion) increase with the rest of the world.
Today, China needs Australia more than Australia needs China. And this is exactly when Canberra has decided to arm itself with a new sanctions regime against the paper Dragon. Australian resilience and ability to survive harsh Chinese measures have helped it win its trade war with China.