BEIJING: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he complained to China’s President Xi Jinping during a meeting on Tuesday about a Chinese naval live-fire exercise off the Australian coast that forced commercial aircraft to change course.
The exercise, held in February, saw a Chinese flotilla partially circumnavigate Australia in international waters beneath a busy commercial flight path in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reacts as he holds talks with China’s President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Lukas Coch/AAP Image via AP)
The mission was widely regarded as a display of Chinese military strength and was among several issues raised in what Albanese described as a “very constructive meeting.”
“President Xi said that China engaged in exercises, just as Australia engages in exercises,” Albanese told reporters, referring to freedom of navigation missions conducted by Australian military in the disputed South China Sea.
“I said what I said at the time,” Albanese added. “There was no breach of international law by China, but that we were concerned about the notice and the way that it happened, including the live-fire exercises,”
Albanese said the Chinese leader did not mention U.S. pressure on allies to declare positions on a potential war over Taiwan.
“I reaffirmed on Taiwan Australia’s position of support for the status quo,” Albanese said. Australia has a one-China policy that recognizes the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China and considers Taiwan a part of China.
With the 10th anniversary of Australia’s free trade deal with China falling this year, both governments have agreed to review the pact with an aim to improve economic relations.
Following the meeting with Xi, Albanese met Premier Li Qiang and Chairman Zhao Leji of the National People’s Congress.
At the outset of the leaders’ meeting, Xi told Albanese that seeking common ground while setting aside differences is in line with “the fundamental interests of our two countries and our two peoples.”
Albanese concurred with Xi’s remark, saying “That approach has indeed produced very positive benefits for both Australia and for China.”
There had been speculation that Xi would use the meeting to raise Albanese’s plan to end a Chinese company’s 99-year-lease on the strategically important Port of Darwin, which the United States is concerned could be used to spy on its military forces.
Landbridge Industry Australia, a subsidiary of Rizhao-based Shandong Landbridge Group, signed the lease with the Northern Territory government in 2015, three years after U.S. Marines began annual rotations through Darwin as part of a U.S. pivot to Asia.
But Albanese said Xi did not mention the lease, nor did he discuss the broader issue of Australia’s foreign investment rules that prevent Chinese ownership of critical infrastructure.
