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Australian Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce urges caution with 'confrontational' China

2021-08-11 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-亚洲原网页

CANBERRA (BLOOMBERG) - Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the government needs to treat China with more caution after relations with its largest trading partner hit new lows.

"They have made the world look at them in a different light - their actions in the South China Sea, their actions pertinent to the Uighur people, their actions in northern India," Mr Joyce said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday (Aug 11).

"They seem more confrontational."

He added: "We have to be more cautious. We wish that was not the case. I don't think that is a win-win situation for the world. I think that is a bad situation because it means people's attention and resources and attitudes are taken down a different track to what is beneficial for all."

Australia-China relations have been in free fall since April 2020, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison's conservative government called on Beijing to allow independent investigators into Wuhan to probe the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

That has had repercussions for Australia's trade relationship with China, which has imposed tariffs and other restrictions on a range of goods including coal, barley and wine.

In response, Mr Morrison has sought to bolster relations with "like-minded democracies" to buffer to what he sees as China's increasingly assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region. That has included strengthening US-led groups like the Quad security arrangement and the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, further stoking the ire of Beijing.

Australia decided in April to cancel agreements between China's Belt and Road Initiative and Victoria state. Mr Morrison's government is also reviewing whether to force a Chinese company to sell a lease to a strategically important port in a city used as a base for Australian and United States militaries.

Both Australia and China risk "losing sight of the mutual economic benefit that comes from nobody inspiring the fear in the other", Mr Joyce said.

He added that Australia must pursue a policy that allows it to "be as strong as we can, as quickly as we can".

A focus on bolstering defence capabilities was imperative "in the light of the circumstances in the part of the world we live in, and basically the more overt role the China Communist Party is playing", Mr Joyce said.

Last year, the government pledged to increase defence spending to A$270 billion (S$269 billion) over the next decade.

Mr Joyce, 54, returned as deputy prime minister only in June after he was selected as leader of the Nationals - the junior partner in Mr Morrison's coalition government. He previously led his rural-based party for two years until February 2018, when he stepped down after it was revealed he had an extramarital affair with a former aide.

Since he entered Parliament in 2004, the high-profile Mr Joyce has generated media headlines for his blunt and often contentious views on issues, including water management, foreign investment and the need for actor Johnny Depp to comply with Australia's quarantine laws. He briefly cost the government its Lower House majority in 2017 after he was found to also be a citizen of New Zealand, contravening the Constitution.