Aussie wine industry calls out Chinese economic coercion

Wine industry sources in Australia have also scoffed at the suggestion that Australian wines were being dumped cheaply in China, ABC News Australia reports.

Victorian wine consultant James Hall said the average Australian bottle of wine being purchased in China was three times more expensive than a bottle of wine produced there.

"The value of Australian wines being imported into China has almost doubled in value in the last three years," he told ABC Statewide Drive Victoria.

"We have the second-highest prices per litre of any wine being imported into China.

"It's just crazy. It's a decision that seems to be political."

Jeffrey Wilson from the Perth USAsia Centre said a clear pattern of economic coercion was now emerging.

"China's probe against Australian wine follows the same logic as recent moves against barley — the use of seemingly 'technical' trade measures to disguise what is fundamentally a political sanction," he said.

"The Chinese ambassador to Australia publicly threatened such sanctions on wine in April, making it an extreme stretch of credulity to believe this is a routine trade policy investigation."

Mr Wilson also warned that the wine industry would be badly hurt if the Chinese Ministry of Commerce concluded it had been dumping, and imposed trade sanctions.