I'm not parroting any CCP line. I'm definitely not a shill or in any way supportive of the CCP. I'm just calling it how I see it, from the knowledge I have about the subject. I don't need to take an ideological position against everything they say just because I don't like them.
I don't really know whether or not there is a legitimate claim of anti-dumping by the Chinese government. I can at least use common sense to work out that an 80% tariff (which is less than some anti-dumping tariffs Australia takes out against China) is going to exceed the amount of any government subsidies Australia offers and therefore the rate is excessive.
This is the same as some of the antidumping tariffs (which are publicly available) that Australia's government has on Chinese products. Some of them clearly exceed what is necessary to offset state rebates by China.
Dumping occurs when products exported are sold below their normal cost in the local market. This usually happens due to government rebates or subsidies for exporters which allows them to sell below the actual cost to produce the products. Therefore it is reasonable to expect any anti-dumping measures should be offsetting these rebates or subsidies; when anti-dumping measures are used as an effective mean to cut off supply of that product from that country, it moves into the realm of protectionism.
Chinese manufacturers aren't exporting stuff for less than half the price they sell it locally, similarly, I'm pretty sure Australian barely exporters aren't selling it to China for almost half the price they sell it for locally.
If the rate of the tariffs exceed the rate of dumping, the measures aren't being used as they were intended. Anti-dumping measures are a tariff that is allowed under WTO rules for specific reasons. They're not supposed to be used as a proxy measure for protection of local industry. They are intended as a counter measure to foreign state subsidies.
I'm not suggesting that all our anti-dumping measures fall under this category; but some of them definitely do.
There's a good article about it on the conversation: