Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
Resource-rich Australia has been eager to boost its ties with energy-hungry China's expanding economy, and the two countries will further cement their relationship when Wen arrives in Australia today for a three-day visit.
But Canberra's willingness to embrace Beijing has highlighted a divergence with a wary US, which has questioned China's military and economic ambitions and chosen to pursue a nuclear energy deal with India.
"Australia's trying to tread a tightrope between our various trading interests and our strategic alliances," Monash University political analyst Dennis Woodward said.
Australia has long battled to balance a strong alliance with the US with its geographical location in Asia, home to its two largest trading partners, Japan and China. Canberra and Beijing are also negotiating a free trade agreement.
A US deal with India this month -- under which New Delhi will separate its military and civil nuclear facilities, and open civilian plants to inspections in return for US nuclear fuel and technology -- is seen by some analysts as a US bid to build India as a regional counterweight to China.
"We particularly appreciate Australia's view that China's development presents an opportunity, not a threat," Wen told the Australian newspaper in remarks preceding his trip, which some analysts have interpreted as a veiled swipe at the US.
Wen said he had "closely followed" recent security talks between Australia, Japan and the US, during which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced concern about China potentially becoming a "negative force" in the Asia region.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said that he is not "starry eyed" about Wen's visit, and that while Canberra and Beijing enjoy ties envied by other world leaders, the two countries still have differences.
The highest profile trade issue will be China's desire to buy Australian uranium so it can rapidly expand its nuclear power generation capabilities and lessen reliance on polluting fossil fuels. Canberra only allows uranium sales to members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty once they agree on a separate bilateral safeguards deal.
A supplementary agreement is also expected to be signed allowing Chinese companies to directly explore and mine uranium in Australia, although Howard said such arrangements would be subject to regular foreign investment controls.
Wen said in the Australian interview that he would propose regular leadership meetings between Australian and Chinese officials in order to maintain a smooth bilateral relationship. Only the US currently has such an arrangement with Beijing.
also see story:
Editorial: Wen Jiabao takes the yellowcake
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS