Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Sunday expressed their strong opposition to "economic coercion," the Japanese Foreign Ministry said, in a veiled rebuke against China's behavior in connection with trade with Australia.
The opposition came as China has imposed high tariffs on Australian barley following Morrison's call last year for an independent investigation into a source of the novel coronavirus that experts suspect to have originated in Wuhan, central China.
Meeting on the fringes of the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, southwestern England, Suga and Morrison also affirmed their commitment to promoting coordination with the United States and India in the so-called Quad grouping in an effort to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.