The Standard - Breaking NewsYesterday, 6:57 PM
Australia dismisses fears over China link to Darwin port
(11-19 18:57)
Australia's prime minister defended the leasing of a strategically important port to a Chinese company, saying the military could seize control in a crisis.
The Northern Territory government has struck a deal to lease Darwin city's port to the Chinese government-linked Landbridge Group for 99 years.
The deal has attracted criticism because Darwin in an important military base on the northern Australian coast, where up to 2,500 US Marines train as part of increasing US defense resources in the Asia Pacific.
US President Barack Obama raised the deal in discussions with Turnbull at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Philippines.
“The Department of Defense or this federal government can step in and take control of infrastructure like this in circumstances where it's deemed necessary for purposes of defense,'' Turnbull told reporters in Manila.
Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wrote in The Australian national newspaper on Tuesday that the port deal appeared short sighted.
“At worst, it threatens to undermine Australia's relations with its closest security partner, the US, at a time when the latter is finally beginning to put serious effort behind its ‘pivot' to the Asia-Pacific region,'' Krepinevich wrote.
Australians are wary of increasing Chinese investment, especially from state-owned businesses, with suspicions that the Chinese want to weaken Australian ties to the United States and feed Chinese industry with Australian natural resources at discount prices by buying mines and farms.
The government announced today it had barred foreigners from buying a company that owns the world's largest cattle ranch and other Australian farmland greater in area than South Korea.
The company, S. Kidman & Co., owns 10 cattle ranches, a bull breeding stud and a feed lot covering 101,411 square kilometers in four states.
Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board found that the sale to foreign investors would be contrary to the national interest. At least three Chinese bidders were reportedly interested in buying the Adelaide-based company.—AP
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=68990
