UK-Australia trade agreement, cornerstone of the democratic cordon around China
London capitalized on the G7 presidency by placing itself at the center of a front of liberal democracies in the process of containing China with the weapons of trade and infrastructure.
The first major free trade agreement negotiated from scratch after the UK's exit from the Union was concluded by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian counterpart Scott Morrison at a meeting in Downing Street following the Carbis Bay Summit in Cornwall .
The British presidency had also invited Australia, South Korea and India to the works of the 7 large industrialized countries to launch the suggestion D10: a democratic cordon around China in the Indo-Pacific area.
At the conclusion of the summit, the agreement with Canberra arrived. From a commercial point of view, the FTA with Australia is the gateway to the UK in the fast growing region of the Indo-Pacific through the CPTPP, one of the largest free trade areas in the world, representing 10,000 billions of pounds of GDP and 11 Pacific nations (Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam).
The deal with Australia shows the ambitions of the UK's independent trade policy. The FTA is not limited to goods, zero tariffs and zero quotas, but also covers services and digital commerce and regulates the cross-border transmission of data. In particular, the provisions on the free flow of information and the prohibition of data localization will allow companies to establish themselves in each other's markets without the cost and bureaucratic burden of having to manage local servers.
From a strategic point of view, the FTA with London is the first response to the Sino-Australian tensions and a demonstration of the potential of the D10 in action. Beijing had imposed tariffs of up to 80 percent on a number of strategic products including coal, barley, meat, lobster and wine after Australia denounced human rights violations in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. Canberra experienced the danger of over-reliance on trade with Beijing and has since been committed to opening up to alternative markets to diversify its exports and neutralize the Chinese boycott.
The G7 then developed a defense strategy from Chinese aggression by approving a comprehensive infrastructure plan for low-income countries in response to the New Silk Road. As stated in the statement released by the White House, the program has "high standards of transparency" as opposed to Chinese opacity. The initiative, proposed on American impulse with a geographical axis that extends along the British Commonwealth, will be called Build Back Better World (B3W).
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss is now engaged in a bilateral meeting in London with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai for their first face-to-face meeting since Joe Biden's inauguration in the White House. Truss and Tai said they wanted to discuss "a comprehensive approach to trade, focused on the tools and rules needed to address China's distorting free market practices."
The joint statement comes after news released this week that the US and the UK have reached an agreement to eliminate retaliatory tariffs on the Airbus – Boeing dispute. The US and the UK have formed a common front to focus on the threat posed by China's nascent aviation industry. The State Department had conceived a permanent solution through two treaties – one between the US and the EU and another post-Brexit agreement between the US and the UK – on new ground rules for aerospace. But with German interests in China overshadowing the operation, the UK has filled the geopolitical space. The emerging G2 order, with the US in the West and China in the East, was emerging inadequate to maintain global stability. The UK works for a multilateral third leg. In the G3, London plays across the board and straddles the Atlantic and Pacific, seeking a balance between commercial interests and an alliance based on values. So did William Ewart Gladstone during the reign of Queen Victoria. Everything returns to the changing world.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/accordo-commerciale-uk-australia-pietra-angolare-del-cordone-democratico-intorno-alla-cina/ on Tue, 22 Jun 2021 03:58:00 +0000.