Beijing Albo and the Communist Chinese Sonar Attack Upon the Australian Navy By James Reed
The Albo government waited until after the conclusion of APEC to let the public know that divers with the Royal Australian Navy suffered injuries after being attacked by sonic pulses from a communist Chinese warship. This attack occurred of the coast of Japan on November 14, before the PM Albo left to attend APEC. This was done in international waters. If the sides were reversed and Australia did this to the Chinese, I expect that it would be seen as an act of war. Wars have started for less.
As Malcolm Roberts rightly points out, it is about time our political leaders started protecting Australian interests, rather than bowing to communist China, in cringing, embarrassing acts of appeasement, which emperor Xi would simply laugh at.
“The sonar attack on Australian Navy shows Albanese’s China appeasement will not work. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave up a legal case Australia would have certainly won on wine and barley tariffs so that he could meet with CCP leader Xi Jinping. The CCP lost nothing, wasn’t punished for a clear breach of the law and Australia is simply back at square one. Now it’s revealed four days after the incident (on a weekend while most media is asleep) that the CCP harmed Australian Navy divers in international waters. In hiding events from the people, the Albanese Government disrespects Australians, why? Presumably because Anthony Albanese didn’t want to “cause a scene” at the APEC summit that he jetted off to again. The Albanese Government’s attempts at appeasement will not work. China will only ever look out for the interests of their country. It’s about time our leaders started doing the same.
“The federal opposition has demanded Anthony Albanese reveal whether he confronted Xi Jinping at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco over an incident in which Australian navy personnel were injured in an interaction with a Chinese warship.
The Australian government waited until after the conclusion of APEC to reveal that divers with the Royal Australian Navy suffered minor injuries after being subjected to sonar pulses from a Chinese warship. The incident occurred off the coast of Japan, with the government confirming the personnel were hurt on Tuesday November 14 – a full day before the Prime Minister left to attend the APEC leaders’ meeting.
Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the Coalition condemned the actions of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N), but added that the Albanese government had some “serious questions to answer.”
“The Prime Minister must explain …. whether he raised it directly with President Xi Jinping at APEC,” Mr Hastie said. “What we continue to see from the Prime Minister and his Labor government is a lack of leadership and a lack of action.”
“We have always said that we will judge the Chinese Communist Party on their actions rather than their words, and this provocative behaviour contradicts the Government’s belief they are witnessing a stabilisation of the relationship with China. This incident is evidence to the contrary,” he said.
“The Prime Minister must immediately disclose whether he raised this matter with President Xi, or whether it was withheld for expedient political purposes. Any failure to do so would rightly raise questions around Anthony Albanese’s ability to lead our nation.”
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson told The Australian.“This conduct by the People’s Liberation Army Navy is irresponsible, dangerous and aggressive.
“To deliberately harm Australian navy personnel operating within the exclusive economic zone of Japan is particularly egregious and totally contrary to the pronouncements of friendship we saw in Beijing.
“It’s certainly not the act of a friend and it is completely contrary to the warmth and the apparent friendship that was displayed in Beijing only a couple of weeks ago when the prime minister and the foreign minister were there,” Senator Paterson added.
“On one hand, China says it wants a better relationship with Australia and on the other hand it takes dangerous manoeuvres that put the safety of Australian personnel at risk and in fact has caused them injuries in this case.
“This is very malign behaviour and it is yet more evidence of why the relationship with China is far from normal
“The Prime Minister should immediately explain whether he confronted President Xi about this when they were together in San Francisco this weekend, and what other steps the government is taking to deter this malign behaviour from occurring again.”
While Mr Albanese said he had spoken earlier in the day with Mr Xi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the conclusion of the summit, he did not say whether he had raised the incident with them.
The divers were hurt while performing a mission in support of United Nations sanctions enforcement, with Defence Minister Richard Marles saying on Saturday the HMAS Toowoomba was in international waters inside of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone enroute to commence a scheduled port visit when the incident occurred.”
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