Sydney,
\nAustralia\u2019s Prime Minister admitted on Thursday bubbling tensions with China over allegations of Beijing meddling in domestic politics, but denied there was a \u201cdeep chill\u201d in relations after reports ministers were being refused visas.<\/p>\n
Bilateral ties took a dive late last year when Canberra announced wide-ranging reforms to espionage and foreign interference legislation, singling out China as a focus of concern.<\/p>\n
It sparked a furious response from Beijing, which summoned Australia\u2019s ambassador and attacked local media stories about infiltration, describing them as fabrications based on hysteria and paranoia.<\/p>\n
The ice has yet to thaw, with another spat in January prompting Beijing to lodge a formal diplomatic protest after a senior Australian minister called Chinese infrastructure projects in the Pacific \u201cwhite elephants\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Australian Financial Review said today China\u2019s leadership was so incensed by Canberra\u2019s rhetoric that it was regularly refusing visas to ministers and a major annual showcase of Australian trade and business in China looked certain to be abandoned this year.<\/p>\n
The newspaper characterised it as a deep chill with the country\u2019s top trading partner, but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was keen to play the story down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has certainly has been a degree of tension in the relationship that has arisen because of criticism in China about our foreign interference laws,\u201d he told the radio station 3AW in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I would say is there has clearly been some misunderstandings and mischaracterisations of our foreign interference legislation in the Chinese media.\u201d He added that while his government had \u201ca very strong and respectful relationship\u201d with China, \u201cwe do everything we can to ensure any foreign interference in our politics is open and declared\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reforms to espionage and foreign interference laws were proposed after Australia\u2019s spy agency raised concerns that China was interfering in local institutions and using the political donations system to gain access.<\/p>\n
The frosty relations were highlighted by Australia not sending a minister to the recent Boao Forum – dubbed the Asian Davos – which Chinese President Xi Jinping attended and where Canberra usually has high-level representation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sydney, Australia\u2019s Prime Minister admitted on Thursday bubbling tensions with China over allegations of Beijing meddling in domestic politics, but denied there was a \u201cdeep chill\u201d in relations after reports ministers were being refused visas. Bilateral ties took a dive late last year when Canberra announced wide-ranging reforms to espionage and foreign interference legislation, singling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27754,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27752\/revisions\/27754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}