canberra chinas warning of trade repercussions from australias campaign for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus has rattled australian business leaders as president donald trumps administration urges other governments to back such a probechina has accused australia of parroting the united states in its call for an inquiry independent of the world health organization to determine the origins of covid19 and how the world responded to the emerging pandemicchinese ambassador cheng jingye used an australian newspaper interview this week to warn that pursuing an inquiry could spark a chinese consumer boycott of students and tourists visiting australia as well as of sales of major exports including beef and winewhen senior australian diplomat frances adamson raised concerns about the interview cheng took the extraordinary step of making public his account of their telephone conversation cheng said he told adamson to put aside ideological bias and stop political gamesus secretary of state mike pompeo attacked chinas coercion and urged us partner countries to also demand transparency and answersi saw some comments from the chinese foreign ministry talking about coercive activity with respect to australia who had the temerity to ask for an investigation who in the world wouldnt want an investigation of how this happened to the world pompeo told reporters in washingtonthe chinese foreign ministry has said the allegation of economic coercion was unfoundedaustralian prime minister scott morrison on friday stood firm on his call for an inquiry and denied any motivation other than to prevent such a pandemic happening againi dont think anybodys in any fantasy land about where it started it started in china and what the world over needs to know and theres a lot of support for this is how did it start and what are the lessons that can be learned morrison told sydney radio 2gbthat needs to be done independently and why do we want to know that because it could happen againsome australian business leaders have warned of economic damage from a boycott by australias biggest trading partner corporate leaders have advised against any inquiry until after us presidential elections in november to avoid political blameshiftingaustralian media magnate kerry stokes used the front page of the west australian newspaper to urge morrison to appease chinaif were going to go into the biggest debt weve had in our life and then simultaneously poke our biggest provider of income in the eye its not necessarily the smartest thing you can do his newspaper quoted stokes as saying referring to billions of dollars in debt the government has run up trying to keep the economy afloatrelations between china and australia have been strained by australias outlawing of covert foreign interference in politics and institutions china is particularly angry that australia has banned chinese communications giant huawei from involvement in critical infrastructure on security groundslong delays in moving australian wine from chinese wharfs and in offloading shipments of australian coal with little or vague explanation have been linked to the bilateral disputebut the coronavirus has brought