China-Australia relations: PM Scott Morrison responds to Beijing’s list of 14 grievances
- Beijing complained about Canberra’s involvement in domestic affairs like Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, spy accusations, and its coronavirus inquiry call
- But Morrison said Australia acted in its own interests and would not compromise its values or policies on issues like investment, 5G and interference
“Australia will always be ourselves,” Morrison said in a television interview with the Nine Network on Thursday. “We will always set our own laws and our own rules according to our national interests – not at the behest of any other nation, whether that’s the US or China or anyone else.”
Morrison said he had seen the “unofficial document that’s come out of the Chinese embassy”. He added that Australia’s values, democracy and sovereignty “are not up for trade”. His government has labelled Chinese trade reprisals launched this year as “economic coercion”.
China cites litany of grievances with Australia, shirks blame for spat
“We won’t be compromising on the fact that we’ll set what our foreign investment laws are, or how we build our 5G telecommunications networks, or how we run our systems to protect that are protecting against any interference,” Morrison said.
“Having a free media, having parliamentarians elected and able to speak their minds is a cause for concern, as well as speaking up on human rights in concert with other countries like Canada, New Zealand, the UK and others in international forums, if this is the cause for tension in that relationship, then it would seem that the tension is that Australia is just being Australia,” Morrison told Seven Network’s Sunrise programme.
Morrison visited counterpart Yoshihide Suga in Toyko in his bid to build a coalition of “like-minded” democracies pushing back against what Beijing’s increasing influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
As well as agreeing to a legal framework that will allow the military of each nation to stay in the other’s country to conduct joint exercises, Morrison and Suga issued a joint statement with criticisms of Chinese policies, including their “strong opposition to any coercive or unilateral attempts to change the status quo and thereby increase tensions in the region.”
China says Australia-Japan pact should not threaten others’ interests
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing in Beijing on Wednesday that the “Chinese side is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to their press statement in which they accused China on the South China Sea and East China Sea issue”. The two nations “blatantly interfered in Hong Kong affairs and China’s internal affairs”, he said.
On Tuesday, Zhao gave reporters in Beijing a detailed explanation for souring ties and “repeated wrong acts and remarks”, including Australia involving itself in domestic affairs in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, accusing it of spying, calling for the Wuhan probe and for rejecting “Chinese companies seeking to invest in Australia under the excuse of national security”.
“We stand up with other countries, whether it be on human rights issues or things that are happening around the world, including in China,” Morrison said.
“Now if that is the source of tensions between Australia and China, well I can assure you that Australia will continue to be ourselves, we’ll continue to act in our own national interests, and pursue partnerships like the one” with Japan, which would “only strengthen stability and peace in the Indo-Pacific”.
Additional reporting by Reuters