China says there are no trade sanctions to remove

China never officially acknowledges it engages in economic coercion, although everyone knows it has been doing this for decades. This would be a breach of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules for a start. Instead, it dresses up sanctions in the form of anti-dumping probes, or quietly encourages Customs officials who have huge amounts of discretion to find problems with cargoes, such as the pests found in Australian timber in 2020. When China started restricting Australian coal in 2019, traders were invited to secret meetings where government officials issued instructions verbally. They were not allowed to record or film those conversations….