Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison attacked the credibility of French President Emmanuel Macron as a newspaper quoted a text message that suggested Paris anticipated “bad news” about a now-scuttled submarine deal.
Meanwhile, an Australian newspaper cast doubt on US President Joe Biden’s explanation to Macron last week that the US leader thought the French had been informed long before the September announcement that their A$90 billion (US$66 billion) submarine deal with Canberra would be scrapped.
Macron on Sunday accused Morrison of lying to him at a Paris dinner in June about the fate of a five-year-old contract with majority French state-owned Naval Group to build 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines.
Australia canceled that deal when it formed an alliance with the US and the UK to acquire a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines built with US technology.
Morrison told Australian reporters who had accompanied him to Glasgow, Scotland, for a UN climate conference that he made clear to Macron at their dinner in June that conventional submarines would not meet Australia’s evolving strategic needs.
Two days before Morrison, Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the nuclear submarine deal, Morrison attempted to phone Macron with the news, but the French leader texted back saying he was not available to take a call, the Australian newspaper reported yesterday.
Macron asked: “Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions?” the report said.
A journalist asked why Morrison decided to leak the text message after Macron accused him of lying, but the prime minister did not directly answer.
“I’m not going to indulge your editorial on it, but what I’ll simply say is this: We were contacted when we were trying to set up the ... call and he made it pretty clear that he was concerned that this would be a phone call that could result in the decision of Australia not to proceed with the contract,” Morrison said.
Morrison said Macron’s accusation of lying, which the prime minister denies, was a slur against Australia.
Most Australian observers see it as a personal insult against Morrison.
“I must say that I think the statements that were made questioning Australia’s integrity and the slurs that have been placed on Australia, not me — I’ve got broad shoulders, I can deal with that — but those slurs, I’m not going to cop sledging of Australia. I’m not going to cop that on behalf of Australians,” Morrison said.
Biden told Macron that the handling of the Australian submarine alliance was “clumsy” and “not done with a lot of grace.”
However, a 15-page document negotiated by the White House National Security Council with Australian and British officials detailed to the hour how the world would be told about the trilateral submarine deal, the Australian reported.
Australian Minister for Defence Peter Dutton confirmed that the US and Britain were kept informed on Australia’s dealings with France, saying the three nuclear-propulsion allies “worked very closely together in lockstep.”
“There was a no-surprises strategy,” Dutton told Sydney Radio 2GB.
CARROT AND STICK: While unrelenting in its military threats, China attracted nearly 40,000 Taiwanese to over 400 business events last year Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese last year joined industry events in China, such as conferences and trade fairs, supported by the Chinese government, a study showed yesterday, as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive toward Taipei alongside military pressure. China has long taken a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military action while reaching out to those it believes are amenable to Beijing’s point of view. Taiwanese security officials are wary of what they see as Beijing’s influence campaigns to sway public opinion after Taipei and Beijing gradually resumed travel links halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scale of
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
Pope Francis is be laid to rest on Saturday after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met yesterday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
RSS