The Australian government has drafted new laws that would cancel international deals struck by lower tiers of governments with foreign states that are not in Australia’s interests, officials said yesterday in a move likely to increase tensions with China.
Victoria state’s memorandum of understanding with Beijing under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, signed two years ago to attract more Chinese infrastructure investment, is among the deals to be reviewed, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison would not comment on the likelihood of the Victorian deal with China being scrapped, saying that he did not want to “prejudice the outcome” of a review.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The legislation to be introduced to the Australian parliament next week did not target China, he said.
“My biggest concern is Australia’s national sovereign interest,” Morrison told reporters.
Australian Attorney General Christian Porter told parliament yesterday that the first investigations were being conducted in New South Wales under the foreign interference laws, which carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
Two entities have been formally asked why they had not applied for registration as agents of influence working for a foreign principal, Porter said.
Porter did not identify the entities receiving the notices or the countries they are suspected of acting for.
The proposed legislation would give Payne power to scrap international deals struck by state governments, public institutions such as universities and at local government level, sister-city partnerships.
It would also create a national register of such deals. Future deals would need federal government approval and could be revoked.
The Australian government has identified 135 agreements with more than 30 countries that needed to be reviewed, Payne said.
The Foreign Relations Bill was announced days after the government revealed it had blocked the US$430 million sale of a major dairy business, Lion Dairy and Drinks, to China Mengniu Dairy Co (中國蒙牛乳業) on the grounds that it would be “contrary to the national interest.”
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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