It is telling that the most extraordinary comments coming out of Xiao Qian’s first public appearance of the year did not refer to either China or Australia.
ao Qian’s first public appearance of the year did not refer to either China or Australia.“During the Second World War, Japan invaded Australia, bombed Darwin, killed Australians and treated Australian POWs in a way that is humanly unacceptable,” Xiao told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
His efforts to portray Japan as an enemy that may attack Australia again and his criticism of the AUKUS agreement with the United States and the United Kingdom underscore the fragility of efforts to reset relations between Canberra and Beijing. The shifting geopolitical order, which means security concerns will continue to trump economic interests, means relations cannot snap back to where they were before 2017.
“If the Australian side is ready to forget about … a multilateral solution and come back to a bilateral solution, I think it’s a good idea as well,” Xiao said.
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