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.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS