(Bloomberg) -- China has labeled Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s call for the Asian powerhouse to be recognized as a developed economy as “one-sided and unfair.”
“The assertion of China being a ‘newly developed economy’ by the Australian side doesn’t hold much water,” Beijing’s Australian embassy said in a statement in response to Morrison’s claim, made during his U.S. tour earlier this week. “It is basically an echo of what the U.S. has claimed.”
Following Morrison’s comments in Chicago on Monday, President Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that China, the world’s second-largest economy, shouldn’t be permitted to declare itself a developing nation to “game the system.”
Trump, who met with Morrison at the White House for security talks during the Australia’s leader’s visit, claims China has unfairly benefited by exploiting trade imbalances that have damaged American manufacturing industries and export revenue.
Morrison on Wednesday wrapped up his six-day visit to the U.S., which was designed to strengthen Australia’s alliance with Washington while still balancing relations with his country’s biggest-trading partner, China. Those ties have become strained, and he told the audience in Chicago the world’s institutions now needed to adjust their settings for China, in recognition of its new developed status.
That’s now been rejected by China, potentially creating a new source of tension with Australia.
“China is still a developing country, which is widely acknowledged by the international community,” the embassy said in the statement, adding per capita gross domestic product in the country is less than $10,000, or about 16% of U.S. per capita GDP and 17% of Australia’s.
“China still has a long way to go to achieve full modernization,” it said.
