Labor and Coalition plans to scrap a lease on Darwin Port held by a Chinese-based company have been condemned by Beijing.
The government and opposition have both pledged to buy back the port from its 99-year lease to Landbridge, regardless of who wins the election.
But the Chinese foreign ministry says turning the lease into a political football risks impacting Australia-China ties that have only just warmed from years of tensions.
“We urge the Australian side to provide a fair, non-discriminatory and predictable business environment for Chinese enterprises investing and operating in Australia, and refrain from overstretching the concept of national security or politicising normal business cooperation,” spokesperson Lin Jian said yesterday.
The port was leased to Landbridge, a Chinese operating company in 2015 under the Turnbull coalition government.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton admitted the move was a mistake.
He pledged to find an Australian buyer for the port by year’s end or compulsorily acquire it at taxpayer expense.
“This is in our country’s best interest. We know we live in uncertain times and the government’s had three years to deal with this issue, they haven’t done that,” he said.
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last weekend the government had been working “for some time” to get the port back into Australian hands.
Albanese also criticised the port’s sale in 2015.
“That was a direct result of the program introduced by the Abbott government in its 2014 budget of asset recycling, which provided an incentive for state and territory governments to flog off our assets, infrastructure assets,” he said.
Since the Albanese government was elected in May 2022, relations with China, the biggest market for Australian exporters, have steadily improved.
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That was after the Chinese communist government hit Australian industries with trade sanctions as ties between the two nations slumped to a new low, sparked by the former Coalition government calling for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and claims of foreign interference.
The lost trade for Australian exports was worth an estimated $20 billion.
