Australian businesses hope for better relations with China: FT

LONDON - Tensions between Australia and China have dealt a blow to the Australian economy and businesses in the country are hopeful of better relations with China, a Financial Times opinion article has said.

Products like Australian wine, barley, lobsters, beef and coal were hit by tariffs, and the move was estimated to cost the economy about 20 billion Australian dollars ($13.62 billion) a year, the British newspaper's correspondent Nic Fildes wrote in late November.

"It underlined Australia's economic dependence on its largest trading partner," Fildes added.

Resentment towards former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his administration grew among business leaders who feared that the geopolitical brinkmanship had backfired, the correspondent noted.

Chief executives would lament that national security concerns "threatened to overwhelm an economic partnership that had not only boosted Australia's terms of trade but was also a mainstay of domestic sectors including education and tourism," Fildes said.

"For some Australian companies, the opportunity for growth in China has been too significant to wait for tensions to ease," he added. (1 Australian dollar = 0.68 US dollar)