Category Archives: Australian foreign policy

China accuses Australia of ‘political posturing’ over diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics

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Scott Morrison says athletes will compete in next year’s Games because sport and politics should not mix

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has confirmed Australian officials will not attend the Beijing Winter Olympics, joining the United States in a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Games and prompting accusations from Beijing of political posturing.

Morrison told reporters in Sydney it was “not surprising”, given the deterioration in the diplomatic relationship between Australia and China, that officials would not attend next year’s winter Games.

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Australia’s early intervention can help Solomon Islands but the roots of the conflict run deep | Mihai Sora

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Honiara has awoken to a calmer scene but tension lingers as quelling the violent protests has not resolved their underlying causes

Unresolved tensions and geopolitical pressures are a volatile mix in Solomon Islands.

What began as a peaceful protest calling for the resignation of prime minister Manasseh Sogavare on Wednesday quickly descended into unrest as the crowd of about 1,000 people, many of whom travelled from the neighbouring Malaita province, grew agitated and set fire to a leaf hut in the capital Honiara’s parliamentary complex.

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‘Naughty guy’: top Chinese diplomat accuses Australia of ‘sabre wielding’ with nuclear submarine deal

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Exclusive: Acting ambassador to Australia, Wang Xining, says politicians including Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott are not serving Australia’s interests

A top Chinese diplomat has likened Australia to “a naughty guy” over the Aukus nuclear submarine deal, saying it jeopardises Australia’s peace-loving reputation and the Australian people “should be more worried”.

China’s acting ambassador to Australia, Wang Xining, said Australia would be branded as a “sabre wielder” rather than a “peace defender” as a result of the plan to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines, which would also affect the nuclear non-proliferation system.

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‘Killed like animals’: documents reveal how Australia turned a blind eye to a West Papuan massacre

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Dozens of West Papuans were tortured and thrown into the sea 23 years ago. Days later, Australia knew details of the attack, yet remained silent. Evening news editor Julian Drape introduces this story about survivors and campaigners still fighting for accountability

You can read the original article here: ‘Killed like animals’: documents reveal how Australia turned a blind eye to a West Papuan massacre


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Taiwan hits back after Paul Keating says its status ‘not a vital Australian interest’

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China’s aggression destabilises the region and threatens democratic freedoms, Taipei says

Taiwan has hit back at the former Australian prime minister Paul Keating after he said Taiwan was “not a vital Australian interest” and labelled it a “civil matter” for China.

In an appearance at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Keating dismissed global concerns about China’s aggression towards Taiwan and criticised Australia’s growing bipartisan pushback.

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‘Throwing toothpicks at the mountain’: Paul Keating says Aukus submarines plan will have no impact on China

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Former Australian prime minister also says Britain ‘like an old theme park sliding into the Atlantic’ compared to modern China

The former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has denounced the US- and UK-backed plan for nuclear-powered submarines as “like throwing a handful of toothpicks at the mountain”, declaring Australia should avoid being drawn into a war with China.

The former Labor leader on Wednesday accused the major Australian political parties of losing their way on foreign policy, while dismissing the credibility of the UK’s “tilt” to the Indo-Pacific region.

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Macron accuses Australian PM of lying over submarine deal

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French president criticises Scott Morrison and expresses scepticism that Aukus pact will deliver on schedule

Emmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra.

The French president levelled the accusation in impromptu comments to Australian journalists on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome. He said he had a lot of “respect and friendship” for Australia and Australians, but that respect between nations needed to be reciprocated.

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Under the radar: the Australian intelligence chief in the shadows of the Aukus deal

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Andrew Shearer’s unreported meeting in April with Joe Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser may have been the clincher for the Aukus security agreement

It was late April when one of Australia’s top intelligence chiefs arrived in Washington for important talks with key officials in the relatively new Biden administration.

Andrew Shearer, a longtime foreign policy hawk and one of Scott Morrison’s most influential advisers on how Australia should position itself at a time of rising tensions with China, met with Joe Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser, Kurt Campbell, in the building next to the White House on 30 April.

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China lambasts Tony Abbott for ‘despicable and insane performance in Taiwan’

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Embassy in Canberra describes former Australian PM as ‘a failed and pitiful politician’ after he raised concerns that Beijing ‘could lash out disastrously’

China’s embassy in Canberra has denounced the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott for what it called a “despicable and insane performance in Taiwan”.

On a visit to Taipei to address a regional forum last week, Abbott raised concerns that Beijing “could lash out disastrously very soon” amid growing tensions over the future of Taiwan – and argued the US and Australia could not stand idly by.

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Tony Abbott raises fears China ‘could lash out disastrously’ as Taiwan tensions grow

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The former Australian prime minister uses a speech in Taipei to call on Beijing to ‘scale back the aggression’

The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has raised fears Beijing “could lash out disastrously very soon” amid growing tensions over the future of Taiwan – and argued the US and Australia could not stand idly by.

Delivering two high profile addresses to a regional forum in Taipei on Friday, Abbott dismissed claims that Australian officials were beating the “drums of war”, while calling on Beijing to “scale back the aggression”.

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Australia urged to support Asian Development Bank plan to end fossil fuel financing

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Thirty-five organisations implore Australia, which is ADB’s fifth-largest shareholder, to help the region ‘make a just and equitable low-carbon transition’

The Australian government is being urged to support an end to the financing of fossil fuel projects as the Asian Development Bank prepares to signs off on a new energy policy later this month.

The ADB “will not support coalmining, processing, storage, and transportation, nor any new coal-fired power generation”, according to a draft version of the policy, which also endorses “the early retirement of coal-based power plants”.

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Will all submarines, even nuclear ones, be obsolete and ‘visible’ by 2040?

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Technologies could render the ocean transparent by the time Australia’s new submarines are ready, some experts say

Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered submarines could be obsolete by the time they hit the water in the 2040s due to new technologies making underwater vessels “visible”, some experts argue.

One of the controversies over the federal government’s decision to ditch the $90bn deal to build conventional submarines in favour of nuclear boats is the timeline for getting them battle-ready.

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Australia warns China against ‘threat or use of force’ following Taiwan air incursions

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Canberra weighs into dispute saying it wants ‘an Indo-Pacific region that is secure, prosperous and based on the rule of law’

The Australian government has raised concerns about China’s increased incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone and warned against “the threat or use of force”.

Taiwan has said Beijing sent nearly 150 fighter jets and bombers into its air defence zone over four consecutive days, prompting the US to describe the incursions as “provocative” and “destabilising”. Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, described the activity as “threatening”.

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Australia told French submarine firm it didn’t have green light to proceed hours before deal cancelled

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Letter, sent to Naval Group on 15 September, is at the heart of diplomatic rift between France and Australia

Australia cautioned the French contractor – hours before the $90bn submarine deal was cancelled – that its achievement of a key contractual milestone did “not provide any authorisation to continue work”.

The letter, sent to Naval Group on 15 September, is at the heart of an extraordinary diplomatic rift between France and Australia, with the French foreign minister telling a parliamentary hearing this week that “someone lied”.

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‘Someone lied’: French foreign minister accuses Australia of submarine betrayal in latest broadside

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Jean-Yves Le Drian says Australia reassured France everything was fine right up to the day the Aukus pact was announced

France has accused Australia of lying shortly before Canberra cancelled a major submarine contract, with the French foreign minister declaring “someone lied”.

With no sign of any imminent easing of tensions between the two countries, Jean-Yves Le Drian told a parliamentary hearing that Australia had never expressed doubts about the €56bn (A$90bn) submarine contract or the strategic Indo-Pacific pact before breaking the contract.

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Australia reveals it raised case of Julian Assange with US, amid ‘kidnap plot’ claim

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Foreign minister Marise Payne discussed WikiLeaks founder with US counterpart in Washington DC, a spokesperson says

Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, raised the case of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange with the US secretary of state during her visit to Washington DC this month, the government has revealed.

But Australian parliamentarians who support Assange say the government should demand his immediate release, after a US news report this week claimed CIA officials during the Trump administration had discussed abducting and even assassinating the Australian citizen.

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‘We thought we were mates’: French ambassador laments subterfuge en route to Sydney airport

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Jean-Pierre Thebault was angry about Aukus as he left Australia on Saturday night, saying: ‘It’s like in a couple, you know, when you commit … you don’t run away’

The French ambassador to Australia was in a car heading to Sydney airport for an urgent flight back home when he revealed he was “sad like any decent person would be”.

Jean-Pierre Thebault left Australia on Saturday night after Australia’s $90bn submarine deal with France was scrapped late last week, causing an unexpected rupture in the relationship between two friendly countries.

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French recall of ambassadors shows extent of anger over Aukus rift

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Analysis: ties between Paris and Washington in worse state than at time of Iraq war after Australia’s cancellation of submarine deal

The recall of the French ambassadors to Australia and the US – without precedent in two centuries of diplomacy between Paris and Washington – has plunged relations to depths unknown for decades.

Rifts over the Iraq war or Nato pale into insignificance. True, the French recalled their ambassador to Rome a couple of years ago, irked by the insults sent their way by the upstart Five Star leader Luigi di Maio, but that was a little warning to populists to stop encouraging the disruption of the yellow vest protests.

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Diplomacy dialled up to 11: Australia saddles up with US as Indo-Pacific heads for cold war | Katharine Murphy

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Australia didn’t announce the ‘forever partnership’ while Donald Trump was in the White House. What happens if he returns?

Ever flexible, ever the pragmatist, Scott Morrison started thinking about his new “forever partnership” with the United States and Britain 18 months ago while Australia was still tied to a $90bn contract with France to build submarines.

Australia looked to America because of a practical consideration. If the Morrison government was going to jettison the troubled French proposal, and countenance the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, the US possessed the technology that would suit Australia’s purposes.

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‘That fella down under’: Joe Biden forgets Scott Morrison’s name during historic pact announcement

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US president calls Australian prime minister ‘that fella down under’ at press conference for new trilateral security partnership

Scott Morrison has been called many things, but “that fella down under” may be the one that stays with the Australian prime minister the longest.

The blunder came as the US president, Joe Biden, announced a trilateral security partnership with Britain and Australia, called Aukus. It will see the US share nuclear technology that will help Australia create a multibillion-dollar fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

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