China has been accused of breaching the spirit of its free trade agreement with Australia after slapping tariffs on global beef imports.
In an unwelcome start to 2026 for Australian beef producers, China announced additional 55 per cent tariffs on beef imports for nations including Australia when shipments exceed certain quotas.
China’s commerce ministry has set the total annual quota at 2.7 million tonnes and allocated Australia 205,000 tonnes.
The measures took effect on January 1 for three years and stem from a probe initiated in December 2024 to protect China’s ailing beef sector.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australian representatives were communicating with their Chinese counterparts and stressed his nation wasn’t being “singled out”.
“Australian beef is in my view proudly, as the Australian prime minister, the best in the world,” he told reporters on Thursday.
“We compete in the world very well and our products are in great demand right around the world.
“We expect that will continue … the Australian beef industry has never been stronger than it is today, as we enter 2026.”
China is a major long-term market for Australian beef producers but made up about eight per cent of the country’s total beef imports.
Both Cattle Australia and the Australian Meat Industry Council estimate the restriction could reduce the nation’s beef exports to China by about a third compared to 2025.
That would equate to a loss of more than $1 billion in trade.
Quotas were eliminated when then-prime minister Tony Abbott struck the landmark free trade deal with China in 2015, opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan said.
China’s decision was “entirely unwarranted and at odds with the sentiment” of the free trade agreement, Cattle Australia chair Garry Edwards said.
“We strongly believe this decision will erode the access of Chinese consumers to a reliable source of high-quality, safely produced protein,” he said.
Australian representatives provided formal evidence its imports did not injure the local Chinese beef industry during the review process, Mr Edwards said.
China’s restrictive arrangements were not fair, appropriate or reflective of its long-standing beneficial trade relationship with Australia, Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive officer Tim Ryan said.
“This decision appears to reward other countries who have surged the volume of beef exported to the Chinese market in recent years,” the fellow peak lobby group head said.
“This decision will have a severe impact on trade flows to China over the duration of the measures’ enforcement, disrupt the longstanding relationships fostered under the China-Australia free trade agreement, and restrict the ability for Chinese consumers to access safe and reliable Australian beef.”
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, who was in cabinet when the free trade agreement was signed, said China’s move away from fostering beef trade with Australia was “worrying”.
“So what the prime minister needs to do is leverage the very good relationship that he tells us he had with President Xi (Jinping),” she said.
“And make sure he makes contact and makes it very clear that Australia should not be included in any of these arrangements when it comes to restrictions on the trade with beef to China.”
US President Donald Trump’s administration lifted 10 per cent tariffs on Australian beef imports in mid-November.
The trade dispute comes after Australia condemned China’s military launching an expansive surprise attack simulation near Taiwan on Monday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the “Justice Mission 2025” exercises were deeply concerning, destabilising and risked “inflaming regional tensions”, and revealed Australian officials had raised the matter with their Chinese counterparts.
“Differences should be managed through dialogue, not the use of force or coercion,” the department said.
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