MacroBusiness Access Subscriber Only Content First up, China has declared forever war on Aussie coal, at the ABC: Chinese state media appears to have confirmed that Beijing has blocked Australian coal imports, in a move which is likely to cost the economy billions of dollars and further inflame tensions between the two countries. Nationalistic state-owned tabloid The Global Times reports that China’s top economic planner has approved power plants to import coal without clearance restrictions from several countries “except for Australia”. Australian government sources say such media reports should be treated seriously because they are generally directly sanctioned by the Chinese Government.