Illustration: Tang Tengfei/GT

Despite a spiraling downward bilateral relationship, some anti-China forces in Australia have spared no efforts to keep expanding the ideology-biased hostility into every aspect, even normal city-level communications.

By threatening long-fostered exchanges and cooperation between Aussie and Chinese cities, these impenitent anti-China forces have put their cities' economic growth opportunities at risk.

Brisbane, capital of the Australian state Queensland and the third most populous city in the nation, has established a sister-city relationship with Chinese city of Chongqing for 15 years. Recently the City Council of Brisbane adopted a motion to commemorate the anniversary which was later applauded by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian at a regular press conference.

Such friendly communication also could not evade those anti-China forces' ill-intended disturbance. A report by local news site Courier Mail titled "China's praise for Brisbane City Council raises concerns," said that the sister city agreements can be used by China for "propaganda purposes," citing paranoid warnings from Peter Jennings, director of the high-profile anti-China think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Firmly upholding the cold war mentality, these media or so-called experts have been recklessly poisoning China-Australia relations and further freezing the already cooled down relationship. 

Establishing sister-city ties, cities from different countries or regions managed to cultivate an amicable and convenient framework for various exchanges and cooperation. Taking the one between Brisbane and Chongqing for example, the two cities signed a sister city agreement in 2005, agreeing to conduct exchanges in fields such as science, technology, culture, education, and tourism, according to the website of Brisbane City Council.

With favorable economic complementarities, these forms of communication foster a friendly environment for businesses and other type of exchanges, which brings in mutual benefits. Economically speaking, it would be more beneficial for the side that has a smaller size of economy and maintains higher dependence on the other side's market.

Brisbane region's Gross Regional Product (GRP) is estimated at AU$171 billion ($121 billion), with 1.2 million resident population in 2018, reads the city's economic profile. By contrast, Chongqing recorded a GRP of 2036 billion yuan ($304 billion) in 2018, over two-folds of that of Brisbane. Chongqing had 34.03 million residents by the end of 2018.

Zhao Lijian told a press conference that since the establishment of sister-city relations between Chongqing and Brisbane, the two cities have conducted a great deal of friendly exchanges and practical cooperation and achieved fruitful results. The friendship is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people of both cities.

Meanwhile, certain Australian politicians and anti-China forces have been ignoring friendly communications and mutual benefited ties, choosing to closely follow the US' steps and vanguard the US' campaign of confronting China.

If such baleful cold war mentality keeps escalating and winning dominant position in the nation, Australia will further damage its ties with China, its largest trading partner, while darkening the development prospects of many of its industries.

The author is director of the research department of the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn