A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Canberra responded angrily to Mr Dutton's call for more transparency about the origins of coronavirus.

"Obviously he must have also received some instructions from Washington requiring him to co-operate with the US in its propaganda war against China," the spokesman said.

Mr Frydenberg told ABC News Breakfast on Wednesday the spokesman's comments were "unwanted and unjustified", adding that senior government ministers would continue to speak up about issues in Australia's national interest.

He said the commercial relationship with Australia's largest trading partner should continue despite occasional political and strategic disagreements.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says Australia relationship with China after the pandemic depends on the facts that emerge about coronavirus.

He says there are concerns with China's transparency over the origins and handling of the virus.

"It is hardly in the nature of an authoritarian regime to be open and transparent," Mr Turnbull told the National Press Club.

"This is where secrecy, lack of transparency, lack of accountability, which is obviously second nature to all governments, but most of all to authoritarian governments, is actually a big threat."

Foreign Minister Marise Payne has also faced China's scorn after pushing for an independent review into the origins of coronavirus and questioning the communist country's transparency.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Senator Payne's views were not based on facts, expressing serious concerns about her comments.

But Australia is pushing ahead with a global push for the review, raising the issue with the US, Germany and France.

"It is in the nature of a new infectious disease that it has to start somewhere. In this case, that place was Wuhan in China," Senator Payne wrote in The Australian on Wednesday.

"Australia is well placed to call for a transparent, international review into COVID-19 because we are a liberal democracy with a proud history of shaping constructive global co-operation."

NSW chairman and head of Asia and international markets at KPMG Doug Ferguson says the political atmosphere plays a role in business relations with China.

"We would prefer to see private and stable relationships and conversations rather than megaphone diplomacy on either side," he told a CEDA event.

"And we very much like to see a better understanding of what sort of non-tariff technical issues the Chinese regulators are seeing so we can adapt and continue to supply."

Australian Associated Press