Canberra urged to provide fair business environment
China's international trade negotiator has expressed concern over Australia's scrutiny of the operations of Chinese firms there, the Commerce Ministry said, while flagging the potential for economic and trade co-operation. The comments by Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen came during a meeting on Monday with Australia's deputy secretary general for foreign affairs and trade in Beijing, the ministry said in a statement. The meeting continues an apparent thaw in trade ties that saw China lift curbs on Australian coal exports in early January, although the trade partners continue to feud over Australian exports of wine, beef, barley, seafood and timber. Wang urged Canberra to "provide a fair, open and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises" during the meeting. "China-Australia economic and trade relations are at an important juncture of stabilisation and improvement," the ministry quoted Wang as saying, while calling for stronger communication and co-ordination to help resolve concerns. This came as Australia banned TikTok from all federal government-owned devices over security concerns, becoming the latest US-allied country to take action against the Chinese-owned video app. Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the decision followed advice from the country's intelligence agencies and would begin "as soon as practicable". He said the government would approve some exemptions on a "case-by-case basis" with "appropriate security mitigations in place". TikTok said it was extremely disappointed by the decision, calling it "driven by politics, not by fact". The Foreign Ministry also condemned the ban, saying it had "lodged stern representations" with Canberra. "China has always maintained that the issue of data security should not be used as a tool to generalise the concept of national security, abuse state power and unreasonably suppress companies from other countries," spokeswoman Mao Ning said. (Reuters/AFP)