stephen: when australia's new trade minister, dan tehan, tried to engage his counterpart in china, hen the middle of january. it was a very extensive letter. it set out why it was so important for us to be able to have a ministerial dialogue. stephen: what signal do you read into the lack of reply? dan: i'm not quite sure. i'm a little puzzled by it because i think the best thing that all countries can do is maintain dialogue. if you've got differences, the best thing you c do is, is engage and make sure you can work through them. so, my hope is that over time, that's where we'll get to. ♪♪♪ stephen: economist and china expert, scott waldron, grew up on the land, in beef country. his family's property, in the tweed valley of northern new south wales, sends its cattle to the co-op at casino. scott: hey, cattle. hey, cattle. hey, cattle. come, girls. stephen: scott waldron has also lived and researched extensively in china. he's fluent in mandarin, and well-placed to analyze china's trade claims. scott: the trade barriers that china imposed on australia in 2020 are cases of economic coe

dan tehan: it might take one or two years for us to resolve it, but the principle of it is incrediblyant to get a decision from the umpire, whether the actions being taken are right or not. if we don't have organizations like the world trade othe rule of the jungle.o to, then it's basically stephen: barley was the start of a slew of trade allegations and sanctions that followed a souring of relations between canberra and beijing. female: the foreign minister, marise payne, is refusing to be drawn on whether she trusts chinover its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. stephen: australia's call for a covid inquiry appeared to be a catalyst. female: a chinese analyst has described the foreign minister marise payne's calls for an independent inquirinto the origins of the ronavirus outbreak and the globalesponse as deplorable. stephen: the reality is the tensions are deep and longer snding. rory: it's a big mistake to think that this simply because of the way the australian governmt responded to the pandemic, the way the australian government very bluntly called for an international inves