CANBERRA • China's top diplomat in Australia has blamed Canberra for deteriorating bilateral ties, accusing it of economic coercion and "provocations" in a wide-ranging speech painting Beijing as a victim.
Citing Australia's decision last week to cancel agreements between Beijing's flagship Belt and Road Initiative and Victoria state among a litany of "negative moves", Mr Cheng Jingye said the country's perception of China as a "threat and challenge" had hurt relations. He called claims of Chinese economic coercion "ridiculous and irrelevant".
"If there is any coercion, it must have been... by the Australian side," Mr Cheng told business leaders in a video address on Thursday, a transcript shows. "What China has done is only aimed to uphold its legitimate rights and interests, prevent bilateral ties from further plunging and move them back onto the right track."
The remarks come days after Australia's Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo ramped up tensions by telling staff that "in a world of perpetual tension and dread, the drums of war beat".
While he did not directly mention China, he said free nations were watching "worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war".
The battle of words shows there is no obvious circuit breaker to mend relations in freefall for a year after Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government called for independent investigators to enter Wuhan to probe the origins of the coronavirus.
Beijing has since inflicted a range of trade reprisals, including crippling tariffs on Australian barley and wine, while blocking coal shipments.
China last week slammed Canberra's decision to use new laws to cancel Belt and Road agreements, which Mr Morrison's government described as "inconsistent with Australia's foreign policy".
There has been increasing speculation that Mr Morrison may use the laws, passed in December, to scrap long-term leases held by Chinese companies at ports in Darwin and Newcastle.
"In relation to the Port of Darwin, if there is any advice that I receive from the Department of Defence or intelligence agencies that suggests there are national security risks there, then you would expect the government to take action on that," Mr Morrison said in a radio interview yesterday. While he told reporters earlier this week he had not received any such advice, Mr Morrison's comments could be seen by Beijing as a threat against China's interests in Australia.
"Some Australians no longer regard China as a cooperative partner," Ambassador Cheng said in his speech. "They have no interest in managing bilateral differences on the basis of mutual respect, nor are they interested in maintaining and enhancing political mutual trust." He identified "increasing discriminatory restrictions imposed over investment from Chinese enterprises" as a catalyst for deteriorating ties.
In an apparent swipe at Mr Morrison's bid to rally "like-minded democracies" in forums such as the Five Eyes and Quad, Mr Cheng said "teaming up in small groups against China will not work".
"Clinging to ideological bias as well as Cold War mentality and regarding China as a threat will lead nowhere," Mr Cheng said.
BLOOMBERG
