Australia is committed to retaking a key northern port leased for 99 years to a Chinese company to Australian ownership, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said yesterday after Beijing’s envoy to Canberra warned of trade reprisals.
The Northern Territory government sold Darwin Port to Chinese company Landbridge for A$506 million (US$353.9 million) in 2015, a move criticized by the US.
The awarding of the contract came just a few years after the US posted the first of a rotating group of US Marines in Darwin. The US and Australia are expanding air bases in Australia’s north to host US bombers.
Photo: EPA
Speaking in East Timor, Albanese said his government had made it clear it wanted the port returned to Australian ownership.
“We are committed to making sure that that port goes back into Australian hands because that is in our national interest,” he said.
The port’s owner, Landbridge Australia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in November said the port was in a strong financial position.
Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian (肖千) yesterday told reporters at an annual news conference that Beijing would “take measures to protect the Chinese company’s interests” if a sale of the port were forced.
“Should Landbridge be forced to leave that port, I think it might also affect the substantive investment, cooperation and trade between Chinese companies and that part of Australia,” the Australian Broadcasting Corp quoted Xiao as saying.
Xiao has previously criticized Albanese’s election pledge to return the port to local ownership.
“China would like to reiterate that the relevant Chinese enterprise obtained the lease for the Port of Darwin through market means,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) told a regular news conference in Beijing.
“Their legitimate rights and interests should be fully protected,” he added.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS