China-Australia trade talks to resume
Radio Australia | February 18, 2010
China-Australia trade talks to resume
Chinese trade negotiators are due in Australia next week to resume technical talks on a free trade agreement. This will be the fourteenth round of talks in what has been a painfully slow process. Australia’s Trade Minister Simon Crean is emphatic that the political will exists on both sides to get a deal but there are sticking points.
Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Simon Crean, Australia’s Trade Minister; Nathan Backhouse, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
– Listen
MOTTRAM: Australia’s Trade Minister Simon Crean once quipped to his South Korean counterpart that China ain’t exactly your benchmark for speed - a reference to the almost five years that’ve passed since the announcement that Canberra and Beijing intended to seal a bilateral free trade deal. But Mr Crean, an enthusiast for free trade, has pushed to reinvigorate talks and speaking to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association in Sydney this week, he was upbeat about the desire of political leaders to get the job done.
CREAN: In less than 10 days, the 14th round of negotiations with China will be held in Canberra after being stalled at the technical level for more than a year. The key market access areas of these negotiations have been difficult, and negotiations have taken longer than we would have hoped. But high-level political commitment on both sides remains. The political will in my judgement remains.
MOTTRAM: And heading into that fourteenth round of technical talks, those market access difficulties remain. Simon Crean again.
CREAN: The stumbling blocks still, in essence, remain sensitivity surrounding agriculture. These are sensitivities, I believe, we can address but we can’t ignore. And it is clearly impossible for Australia to accept an FTA outcome that is lesser than China has already offered to New Zealand when it comes to agriculture. Agriculture aside though, my expectations are that as difficult as agriculture is, the big opportunities between Australia and China lie in the areas of services and investment.
MOTTRAM: But just getting past agriculture will be hard enough. The director of trade policy and international affairs at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is Nathan Backhouse, who was formerly a diplomat in China helping set up the FTA negotiations.
BACKHOUSE: We’re talking about a comprehensive FTA and I just don’t think that the Chinese bureaucracy at this point has the level of sophistication to understand what they’re prepared to offer in each of the sectors.
MOTTRAM: Nathan Backhouse also rejects suggestions the FTA talks are swayed by political issues. Australia will certainly be hoping that’s the case, because this 14th round of technical talks comes as Chinese authorities in Shanghai prepare to send four Rio Tinto executives, including Australian Stern Hu, to trial on commercial espionage charges. Even if that’s not an obstacle though, other issues loom as being particularly difficult. For example, intellectual property protection. Nathan Backhouse again.
BACKHOUSE: It’s more about we’re trying to support that position for the US and we’d have to be seen, given that we have a very good relationship with the US, to be supporting their goals, if you like, in IP.
MOTTRAM: In all, Nathan Backhouse sees a very long timeline looming for these FTA talks.
BACKHOUSE: I think that we’re looking at a negotiation for a number of years in the future.
MOTTRAM: A number of years?
BACKHOUSE: Yeah I think that we’ve got at least, there’d be at least two, two to three years to go.
MOTTRAM: With a guarantee of a deal at the end do you think?
BACKHOUSE: Ah no.
