The World Trade Organization should penalize bad behaviour when it occurs, Australia s prime minister said Wednesday ahead of a Group of Seven leaders meeting in Britain where he hopes to garner support in a trade dispute with China. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would be working with others to buttress the role of the World Trade Organization and to modernise its rulebook where necessary. In my discussions with many leaders, I ve taken great encouragement from the support shown for Australia s preparedness to withstand economic coercion in recent times, Morrison said in a speech delivered in the Australian west coast city of Perth before leaving for the G7 meeting in Cornwall.
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Perhaps no other topic agitates the contemporary strategic imagination more than the implications of China’s rise not just for the future of the ruling regime in Beijing but also for Africa, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. But in the recent past, nervous apprehension (mixed with considerable excitement) about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambitions has given way to another sentiment, that China may be inching toward overreach both economic as well as geopolitical as public opinion across many Western democracies coalesces into China skepticism, if not outright antagonism.
In a recent book, “How China Loses: The Pushback Against Chinese Global Ambitions” (Oxford University Press, 2021) Luke Patey presents a tour d’horizon of China’s expanding global footprint as well as growing backlash against Beijing’s grand schemes and geostrategic jostling across continents. Drawing on research and travel across Africa, South America, and parts of the Asia-Pacifi