What do a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist, the former prime minister of Sweden and more than 200 parliamentarians from 19 countries have in common?
They are all drinking Australian wine to “stand against authoritarian bullying” in response to brutal trade tariffs slapped on the country by China amid an escalating diplomatic standoff.
Overnight, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a group comprising more than 200 lawmakers from 19 countries that aims to achieve “reform on how democratic countries approach China,” launched a campaign to encourage people to drink Australian wine this month.
Photo: Reuters
It follows Beijing’s decision to impose trade tariffs of up to 200 percent on Australian winemakers, a decision that Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham has said would make the China “unviable” for exporters.
In a short video, lawmaker from a host of countries — including the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, New Zealand and Norway — said that Beijing’s decision to impose devastating tariffs on Australian winemakers amounted to “authoritarian bullying.”
In the video, Australian Senator Kimberley Kitching accused China of attempting to “bully” Australia into “abandoning its values,” saying the list of 14 grievances circulated by Beijing amounted to “an attack on free countries everywhere.”
Slovakian Member of Parliament Miriam Lexmann said the campaign to drink Australian wine was an attempt to “stand against [Chinese President ] Xi Jinping’s [習近平] authoritarian bullying.”
On Twitter, the video prompted support from other high-profile China critics.
Nathan Law (羅冠聰), one of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy activists who fled to the UK in September following Beijing’s crackdown on the territory, said he had been “moved” to buy a bottle of Australian wine, despite the fact that he did not “really drink.”
Similarly, former Hong Kong lawmaker Raymond Chan (陳志全), who quit the Legislative Council earlier this year after he was one of seven pro-democracy politicians arrested for disrupting parliament, also weighed in to support the campaign.
“Not much of a wine drinker myself, but as my friend Louisa Wall & other MPs suggest, perhaps I can buy a few bottles as gifts to my lawyer friends who defended #HongKong protesters all year long,” Chan wrote on Twitter.
“They deserve some fine Australian wine this holiday season. Cheers,” he wrote.
That followed earlier support from figures including former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, who wrote that it was “not a bad idea to buy some extra wine these days to show solidarity.”
Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said China was attempting to “weaponize trade in its political disputes” with Australia.
“Other countries must take note of the dangers in this development,” he wrote.
“It’s highly likely to backfire” on China, he wrote.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
RSS