Beijing has warned Australia that it will face "lasting punishment" over a politician's call to boycott Chinese-made products, the latest development in an escalating diplomatic dispute between the two nations.
On Monday, Queensland Senator Pauline Hanson, the founder and leader of right-wing populist party One Nation, called for a ban on the importation of goods produced in China. It comes after China's foreign minister Zhao Lijian shared a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child's throat on Twitter - referencing a recent report alleging that Australian special forces unlawfully killed 39 Afghans.
Twitter has refused Australia's request to have the offending image taken down from the platform.
In a new editorial in Beijing's The Global Times, Hanson was warned that her trade threats against China would be met with "lasting punishments".
"Pauline Hanson, leader of Australia's far-right party One Nation, on Monday called for Australians to boycott Chinese products this Christmas. She and her ilk behave not even like a paper tiger, but a hysterical paper cat,'' the editorial states, as reported by news.com.au.
"We would like to tell Australian politicians like Hanson that they have overestimated Australia's importance toward China, and have mistaken the fact that Australia relies on China more in their win-win cooperation. We don't want to insult Australia and its people, but we do despise extreme politicians like Hanson.
"There is no reason for China to continue appeasement toward Australia.
"Chinese society strongly advocates resolute and lasting punishments against Australia and to let the world see clearly – one will eventually pay a price for taking the US side and requiting kindness with ingratitude toward China."
The response follows the censoring of a post by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the Chinese social media platform, WeChat. Morrison's message defended Australia's handling of a war crimes investigation into the alleged actions in Afghanistan, and said Australian would deal with "thorny issues" in a transparent manner.
- What's behind China's bullying of Australia? It sees a soft target, and an essential one
- NZ ideally placed to broker truce between China and the Five Eyes alliance
- Taiwan calls on Australia to help defend against China's 'expansionism'
- Australia's allies should follow NZ's lead and speak up over China's 'bullying' - Kiwi academic Anne Marie Brady
"The post of a false image of an Australian soldier does not diminish our respect for and appreciation of our Chinese Australian community or indeed our friendship with the people of China," he wrote.
On Wednesday evening, that message appeared to be blocked for violating the platform's regulations. The post was deleted overnight, Morrison's office confirmed, as reported by news.com.au, but not before it had been read by 57,000 WeChat users.
A note from WeChat claims that Morrison's post "involves the use of inciting, misleading, or contrary to objective facts, text, pictures, videos, etc., fabricate social hot spots, distort historical events, and confuse the public".
This week, China's state-controlled media also encouraged Morrison to "kneel down on the ground and slap himself in the face" over the allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan.
On Friday (local time), China imposed dumping tariffs of up to 200 percent on Australian wine imports, Reuters reports, effectively shutting off the largest export market for the Australian wine industry.
