Prime Minister Scott Morrison has scrapped Victoria’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal with China, calling it “inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy”.
The decision made late on Wednesday night threatens to inflame already fraught diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing.
Deploying Australia’s powerful new veto powers under legislation passed last year for the first time, the Federal Government ended the deal, warning it was against Australia’s interests.
“I consider these four arrangements to be inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations in line with the relevant test in Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Act 2020,’’ Foreign Minister Marise Payne said.
“I will continue to consider foreign arrangements notified under the Scheme. I expect the overwhelming majority of them to remain unaffected. I look forward to ongoing collaboration with states, territories, universities and local governments in implementing the Foreign Arrangements Scheme.”
China quickly hit back at Australia over what it called an “unreasonable and provocative move”.
In a statement, a Chinese Embassy spokesman slammed the decision which is expected to plunge the fractured relationship into greater acrimony.
“We express our strong displeasure and resolute opposition to the Australian Foreign Minister’s announcement on April 21 to cancel the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation within the Framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and the related Framework Agreement between the Chinese side and Government of Victoria,” the spokesman said. – News Ltd
necessity is the mother of invention. We can build as well if not better. By this i dont mean capitulation signs. Government wont fund labor wont release the feathers from the golden geese of super. Some impossible possibilities required, incorporated crowd funding, managed venture capital, truth and accuracy in dole approval but quick approval for those qualifying. Public service promotion on ability, Allow tipping for good service, review all allowances and variations made on parliament by self serving precedents. Mainly its nil iliegitimate carborundum (dont let the bast…s grind you down. To work go to work it will not come to the frontydoor
Our biggest threat is our own government. They are the ones selling us out. Until the Australian people wake up to that, we are screwed regardless.
99% of Australians are asleep to what is really going on. Our country is screwed.
Well, opposition to China in support of SloMo, will eventually cost jobs and close stores, just the same as in England and since Australia is an economic country, there will always be all of the upper crust jobs, but maybe not the same politicians after your next election, maybe Liberal to Labour which would be interesting to see.
Computers do most of the manual low skilled jobs anyway and the only jobs to be had in future years will be those who can do computer based programming, to remove even more jobs from the workforce and push up earning capacities of those who run the companies, which once employed humans, but don’t anymore, because computer driven machines work 24 hours a day and don’t even need the lights on at nighttime.
The problem then, will be, who takes care of the millions of unemployed, or seniors, who don’t work anymore when and if the Australia Government, does not, especially if it is not earning any income from Duty and Tax and everything else to prop up the Governments financial base?
Bit like the last Depression from 1924 to 1939, if my memory serves me correctly, which none of us have ever experienced and even a war, won’t fix the Australian economy or give work, food or housing to people who have no practical use any more.
Richard
Dear fellow Australians,
Australia , China, US etc are all administered by the same foreign power. The China/vs Aust thing is just theater.. China will crush our economy further and we will be left helpless – the intended outcome.. Then they will bring the world economy down, bring in the new digital system and we will be obvious slaves ( not so obvious to some now ) What I love is how all the enablers thing they won’t be on the scrapheap like us – they will.. All those jobs – doctors, teachers, bureaucrats and traitorous politicians – all gone to AI. Remember, it is us, the men and women of this world vs them – a few parasitic psychopathic inbreed freaks..
This all seems to me to be like a mouse (Australia) taking on an Elephant (China) bearing in mind, that most, if not all of the imports Aussies get, with possibly the exception of food, come mainly from China, on those huge container ships.
If the Chinese stopped all white goods and other products to Australia, which they manufacture, the shop shelves would be bare, of luxury items, in a short amount of time and then they could say that SloMo cut off his nose to spite his face, on behalf of all Australians.
By the same token, most of Australia’s trade goes to countries like China, or which are half way stops, for Aussie products, before they go on to China for final processing and manufacture, so that would cut exports somewhat and the Import and Export Charges, Taxes & Duty, that Australia relies on to prop up its financial position in world markets, which already is not “good”, with interest rates almost at zero% of invested money, so I understand – does not put much faith in the Aussie Dollar either, right now.
I really don’t see what this political grandstanding is going to do to improve the Australian economy which relies on outside investment, if that gets cut off at the knees – although I suppose the Aussies could sell their products to here in England, like they used to do, before England joined the “Common Market” and that stopped all business with Australia and New Zealand in its tracks, back in 1972?
Richard
CHINA, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT “strong displeasure and resolute opposition” MEANS UNTIL YOU SEE AUSTRALIANS FACE TO FACE!
WE HATE COMMUNISM AND COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIPS, AND THEIR ABUSE OF INNOCENT PEOPLE, WITH A VENGEANCE.
“Humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God” (Commonwealth of Australia Constitution 1901).