Report: Australia to Review 99-Year Lease of Darwin Port to Chinese Firm
3 May 2021
Australian defense officials are reviewing a Chinese firm’s 99-year lease of Darwin Port in northern Australia due to “national security” concerns, an Australian government source told Reuters on Monday.
“Defense officials are looking into whether the Landbridge Group, which is owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, should be forced to give up its ownership of Darwin Port on national security grounds,” the source told Reuters.
“Advice has been sought on the port and that will go to national security committee in due time,” the source added.
Cotton workers in Xinjiang: coerced or voluntary? 1 minute read
By Javier Garcia
Aksu/Urumqi, China, May 4 (EFE).- In a vast cotton field in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, four farmers look over a tractor sowing seeds that will later be watered by an automated irrigation system.
The field is located near Changji city, is situated some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, where forced labor is reportedly used in the cotton harvest.
Reports from controversial German researcher Adrian Zenz and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) claim that at least 570,000 people are subjected to forced labor in the fields of Xinjiang, China’s top cotton producer.
US-China information war likely to intensify over Indo-Pacific ANI | Updated: May 04, 2021 18:24 IST
Beijing [China], May 4 (ANI): With the US military s decision to set up a task force aimed at curbing China s influence and information operations, military and security analysts say that an information war over the Indo-Pacific region is expected to intensify.
The creation of the task force in the Indo-Pacific was announced by General Richard Clarke, commander of Special Operations Command in March, who said the US needed to tamp down disinformation by China, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
In the same month, Christopher Maier, acting assistant secretary of defence for special operations, said that the US military would step up countering propaganda, disinformation and deception, force protection and disrupting adversarial influence capabilities.
How hard is Scott Morrison willing to poke the panda? That’s a question posed by the government’s review of the Chinese company Landbridge’s 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin.
The defence department is to advise on the security implications of the lease, granted by the Northern Territory government in a $500 million highly controversial deal in 2015.
At the time, then-United States president Barack Obama chided prime minister Malcolm Turnbull for not giving the Americans a heads up about the deal.
Turnbull added insult to injury by suggesting the president should subscribe to the NT News, where it was reported.
Jacinda Ardern Admits NZ-China Values Becoming ‘Harder to Reconcile’
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has conceded that the interests of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were becoming “harder to reconcile” on the world stage but noted that these differences did not define NZ-China relations.
Ardern’s comments come just weeks after her government endured stinging criticism from UK politicians over Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s reluctance to see the Five Eyes’ arrangement expanded into other areas, including human rights dialogue.
In a speech to the China Business Summit on Monday, Ardern said her government took a “principles-based approach” to foreign policy and made decisions independently and in line with NZ’s interests and values.