China “indefinitely” suspended on Thursday all activity under a China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue, its state economic planner said, the latest setback for their strained relations.
“Recently, some Australian Commonwealth Government officials launched a series of measures to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination,” China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a short statement on the decision.
The commission did not say in the statement what specific measures prompted the action.
The Australian dollar fell sharply on the news, and was as low as 0.7701 to the U.S. dollar from Wednesday’s $0.7747.
Bilateral ties were strained in 2018 when Australia became the first country to publicly ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G network. Relations worsened last year when Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus, prompting trade reprisals from China.
Australia’s trade minister, Dan Tehan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on China’s decision.
The last meeting under the mechanism, intended as a framework for economic cooperation, was in Beijing in 2017, when Australia’s trade minister signed an agreement on cooperation on Belt and Road projects in third-party countries.
