The icy relationship between Australia and China has led to a freeze in high-level diplomatic contacts
Sydney:
Australia on Friday publicly mocked a senior Chinese diplomat’s warning about plans to buy nuclear-powered submarines, saying they were “so silly, so funny”.
In charge of the Chinese Embassy, Wang Xining, said Australia would become a “naughty person” if it bought submarines capable of carrying out long-time stealth missions.
The nuclear-powered submarines are designed to carry out long-range attacks, Wang said in an interview with The Guardian.
“So who are you going to attack? You’re no longer a peace lover, a peacekeeper, you become a sword user in certain forms,” said Wang, the top representative. of China in Australia, said since the previous ambassador left last month after a period of five years.
Wang said Australia had “zero nuclear capacity” to deal with any incident affecting the submarines and asked if politicians would be willing to apologize to the people if any were to happen. out or not.
Australia’s Defense Minister Peter Dutton mocked the “inflammatory” remarks, describing them in a television interview as “provocative, humorous statements that are genuinely sad to the point of absurdity. laugh.”
Dutton said China’s acting ambassador “may be reading a Communist Party script but I think most Australians see right through the useless nature of the comments”.
In September, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that he had decided to purchase nuclear-powered ships in a new defense alliance with the United States and Britain.
Besides infuriating China, the deal also angered France when it finally discovered that its own multi-billion dollar diesel-electric submarine contract with Australia had been cancelled.
In an interview with The Guardian, Wang also warned Australian politicians not to do anything that “destroys relations”.
Over the weekend, Dutton said he could not imagine a situation where Australia would not assist the US in the event of an armed conflict with China over control of Taiwan.
A self-governing democracy with 23 million people, Taiwan is claimed by Beijing and has vowed to one day take it by force if necessary.
The icy relationship between Australia and China has frozen high-level diplomatic contacts for nearly two years.
China has imposed tough sanctions on a number of Australian exports, a measure seen in Canberra in retaliation for Australia’s ban on telecommunications technology giant Huawei from participating in important contracts. and question how the Covid-19 pandemic began.
There was no sign of giving up land to either side.
Morrison this week published a list of 63 “critical technologies” such as 5G communications that are protected from interference by foreign actors, including China.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
