US will not leave Australia alone to face China: Blinken
He says Beijing's attempts to bully its neighbours will hamper US-Sino relations
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Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a joint press conference at the US State Department building in Washington on Thursday. "I reiterated that the United States will not leave Australia alone on the field, or maybe I should say alone on the pitch, in the face of economic coercion by China," said Mr Blinken.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON • The United States will not leave Australia alone to face economic coercion from China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, and that such behaviour towards US allies will hamper improvement in US-Sino relations.
Washington has repeatedly criticised what it says are Beijing's attempts to bully neighbours with competing interests, and US President Joe Biden has sought to bolster ties with allies in the Indo-Pacific to counter China's growing power.
"I reiterated that the United States will not leave Australia alone on the field, or maybe I should say alone on the pitch, in the face of economic coercion by China," Mr Blinken said at a press briefing with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
"And we've made clear to the PRC how such actions targeting our closest partners and allies will hinder improvements in our own relationship with China," Mr Blinken said, using the acronym for the country's official name, the People's Republic of China.
China has imposed a series of trade sanctions on Australian exports ranging from wine to coal as tensions between the countries have worsened in recent years.
Australia was one of the first countries to publicly ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G network over security concerns, and last year angered Beijing with its calls for an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
Ms Payne on Thursday called for the World Health Organisation (WHO) to be given greater powers to investigate outbreaks after an independent panel found dithering and poor coordination when Covid-19 emerged in China.
She praised recommendations of a panel report released on Wednesday and said: "We absolutely support those being taken very seriously."
She pointed to recommendations "about increasing the independence and authority of the WHO so that they have explicit powers to investigate pathogens with pandemic potential and to publish information about those potential outbreaks with immediate action without prior approval of national governments".
"The independent panel is a very important one in terms of the way forward for ensuring that we avoid the experience that the world, this country, our country, so many countries have had to deal with in recent times and the extraordinary loss of life that it has caused," she said.
The panel found that early responses to the outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 "lacked urgency" and said the pandemic was preventable.
Ms Payne said Australia wanted a "constructive" relationship with China. "We stand ready at any time," she said, "to resume dialogue, but we have also been open and clear and consistent about the fact that we are dealing with a number of challenges."
Separately, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison doubled down on comments that Australia's Taiwan policy was guided by China's "one country, two systems" framework, prompting his office to clarify that the government's stance has not changed in a way that would have been seen as a concession to Beijing.
Mr Morrison had reaffirmed remarks made on May 6 in which he said Australia followed a "one country, two systems" approach to Taiwan - a governing system used in Hong Kong that is widely unpopular in Taipei.
Asked by SBS News on Wednesday whether he had made a mistake, Mr Morrison repeated the assertion.
An Australian government statement yesterday tried to clarify its position, saying: "Australia's one-China policy has not changed."
"However, Australia maintains close and positive unofficial ties with Taiwan, an important trade and economic partner," the statement said.
"The Prime Minister's comments on 'one country two systems' were in relation to Hong Kong."
Ms Penny Wong, who heads the foreign affairs portfolio for the main Labor opposition, said in a tweet on Thursday that either "Scott Morrison has substantially shifted Australia's policy on Taiwan, adopting Beijing's position and ending 50 years of bipartisanship - or he's lying to cover up his mistake".
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG
