China’s efforts to gain a greater stake in Australia’s resource industry suffered a new setback yesterday when a Chinese miner dropped a US$400 million bid for a controlling stake in an Australian rare earths miner.
Earlier yesterday, the Australian defense department rejected a separate Chinese investment in an outback mining venture, saying it threatened national security.
China’s latest failed attempt to gain a larger slice of Australia’s raw materials will upset the already strained ties between Canberra and Bejing.
China is Australia’s biggest export market, with trade worth US$53 billion last year, but ties soured in August when China arrested an Australian mining executive and Canberra granted a visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co Ltd (CNMC) terminated its bid for Lynas Corp, owner of the world’s largest undeveloped deposit of rare earths, citing stiff conditions imposed by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.
There is strong public and political opposition in Australia to China’s moves to gain a greater hold of its resource industry.
Australia’s Defense Department said yesterday that it would not support a proposed joint venture between Wugang Australia Resources, a wholly owned unit of Chinese state-owned Wuhan Iron and Steel, and Australia’s Western Plains Resources.
The proposed deal would have seen Chinese magnetite resource investment inside the outback Woomera missile range, used as a weapons-testing ground by the military and Australian allies.
The military’s lack of support means there is virtually no chance that approval will be given.
Australian Defense Minister John Faulkner said the defense department’s rejection of the deal had nothing to do with China, but was purely a security issue.
“The Woomera test range is a significant contributor to Australia’s defense capability, and that of our allies, and that’s the focus that defence brings to bear on these issues,” he said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
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