China has responded “irrationally” to the AUKUS pact between Australia, the US and Britain, Australian Minister of Defence Peter Dutton told Sky News Australia yesterday.
The conservative Australian minister continues to mount forthright criticism of the Chinese government, accusing it of “bullying” countries that stand up to Beijing.
The Australian government formed the AUKUS partnership with the US and the UK because it wanted to “see increased stability and peace in our region,” Dutton said.
“The response by China to that, I think, was irrational,” he added.
It was wrong to suggest that Australia was the one fueling an arms race in the region, “when we’re talking about acquiring eight nuclear-powered submarines at a time when China has 355 vessels in its [naval] fleet, going to 400 within the next nine years,” Dutton said.
“They are producing on a tonnage rate more naval assets every 18 months than what the Royal Australian Navy has in its entire fleet,” he added.
China has sought to portray the AUKUS deal as an “Anglo-Saxon clique” and a threat to the nuclear non-proliferation system.
Acting Chinese Ambassador to Australia Wang Xining (王晰寧) likened Australia to “a naughty guy,” saying that AUKUS would see it branded as a “saber wielder” rather than a “peace defender.”
However, the concerns are not confined to China, with the Australian government moving to allay Malaysia and Indonesia’s worries that the AUKUS deal could add to a regional arms race and pose nuclear non-proliferation issues.
Tensions with Beijing are set to increase, after Australia joined the US and the UK last week in announcing a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in protest over human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the three countries would pay a price for their “mistaken acts” and “posturing.”
Asked yesterday about the threat, Dutton said that China issues such comments “regularly and not just against Australia.”
In the past few weeks, China also “threatened” Lithuania with trade actions, he said.
“We see it more and more regularly, and it’s unsettling and it’s unnecessary, to be honest,” he said.
Dutton — who has been accused of ramping up national security rhetoric for political purposes as a federal election looms — said that it was important to “be realistic” about how China’s outlook has “changed quite dramatically” under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) leadership.
The Australian government’s “problem is with the Chinese government, not with the Chinese people,” he said.
Australia has “an incredibly successful diaspora community” with more than 1 million people of Chinese origin “who have made an enormous contribution to our country,” he added.
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RSS