The United States will not improve its ties with China until Beijing stops economic coercion against Australia, a senior White House official said.
Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Cambell said President Joe Biden's administration had told the Chinese government that the United States would continue to support Australia.
The US is also said to be unwilling to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time when its closest allies are under pressure of economic coercion.
This is the first intervention made by the US to take important steps to support Australia in its dispute with Beijing.
Earlier, President Xi Jinping’s Administration had imposed trade bans and tariffs on Australian export goods worth at least $ 20 billion to China.
In fact, even more recently, the Chinese embassy in Canberra threatened that China-Australia relations would be further affected after Australia granted a visa to a Hong Kong pro-democracy politician, Ted Hui Chi-Fung.
The approach taken by the new administration turned out to be different from the previous Donald Trump administration, in which Biden took more into account his ally’s priorities in trade and other dealings with Beijing.
So far, Biden still maintains all the tariffs and other restrictions imposed by Trump on China. Biden had previously told abhawa that he would consult with US allies in Asia and Europe before making a decision on China's sanctions.
