bgt wrote:

---

Both Newcastle and the Port of Melbourne have large Chinese interests.

---

 Then they need to get the big A too. Although perhaps a bit lower risk.

Leave to one side that policy snafu and ask what has happened since 2015 that should force a rethink of the lease. The answer is that strategic change is reshaping our region, raising serious risks to stability and forcing fundamental shifts in our Defence planning.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/we-need-darwin-port-back-in-our-hands/news-story/d289406db780d685fc0b1112b4785475

msg wrote:

---

The CCP is happy ATM to own a % of a strategic company be it ports, energy, water or whatever else. When the time is right they will put up an offer that the other shareholders can't refuse. Much like the purchase of the agricultural properties they already have from the farmers.

---

And the Foreign Investment Review Board can, and should, stop it.

Santa wrote:

---

oldbloke wrote:

---

bgt wrote:

---

Both Newcastle and the Port of Melbourne have large Chinese interests.

---

 Then they need to get the big A too. Although perhaps a bit lower risk.

---

 Somewhat different oldbloke, China only has investments in Newcastle and Melbourne, it has total control over the port of Darwin.

 

---

 Didn't see your post. Just the same i would like to see them out.

Craig1 wrote:

---

Dorian, they may be using the profits from our money to do this, but the ever increasing film clips of their defence forces is a big worry to me

---

I'm worried, too. I'm just trying to understand a potential enemy, not justify his actions.

Interesting development ...

Australian shipbuilder Austal nears deal on strategic Philippines port while scrapping its China operations:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-06/austal-nears-deal-strategic-philippines-port-china-operations/100115672

"In a local media briefing, Australia's ambassador to the Philippines, Steven Robinson, confirmed Austal was closing in on a takeover of the Hanjin shipyard in the strategically important Subic Bay."

Does anyone have a good link to summarise exactly what the lease entitles China to do/not do and how it could potentially be used against us? Santa's link to tThe Australian is behind a paywall.

For the relatively small lump sum we received, presumably we must be receiving ongoing income. Will it cost us many times that to cancel it? What about China's business case? If it has no hidden agenda, what do they get out of it?

Santa's comment "it has total control over the port of Darwin" should scare the daylights out of any Aussie. Yet in 2015 some thought it was a good idea. What is the real truth? How much control do they have? What does it really mean? If military conflict arises in the region could we stop them harbouring their navy while it is used against our allies, and then potentially us? How easy would it be for them to block our allies from using the port?

Please .. please don't take my post as meaning in any way that I condone the lease. I don't. I can't think of any scenario where I would support giving the Chinese government a foothold in our country. I have been against most foreign investment for many years, particularly from China, not just recently when our focus has changed from them being a trading partner to an enemy in waiting.

Like Dorian's comment, I just want to understand both sides and not rely on media inuendo.

Santa wrote:

---

Darwin port is of strategic importance,  the Japanese bombing raids during the second world war made us well aware of this fact.

---

 1000 vehicles every day were transporting supplies to Darwin.

Are We Lost wrote:

---

Does anyone have a good link to summarise exactly what the lease entitles China to do/not do and how it could potentially be used against us? Santa's link to tThe Australian is behind a paywall.

 

 

---

 Here's a copy of the article Are We Lost.

We need Darwin Port back in our handsPeter Jennings

The Port of Darwin.

• 1:00AM May 4, 2021
• 355 Comments

Leave to one side that policy snafu and ask what has happened since 2015 that should force a rethink of the lease. The answer is that strategic change is reshaping our region, raising serious risks to stability and forcing fundamental shifts in our Defence planning.

First and most obviously, Xi Jinpings China is on an aggressive course to dominate the Indo-Pacific, supplant the US as the regions leading military power, weaken its allies and brook no dissent against Beijings wishes.

In 2017 Australias foreign policy white paper said: The government is committed to strong and constructive ties with China. We welcome Chinas greater capacity to share responsibility for supporting regional and global secur­ity.

That line could not believably be written today. The truth of the matter is that Beijing has no interest in sharing responsibility for regional security. In the South China Sea, over Taiwan, at the border with India and in its dealing with Australia, Beijing shows its aim is to destroy the international order and replace it with its own authoritarian control.

A second change is that the economic relationship we once welcomed with China is being used by Beijing as an instrument of coercion and punishment. In the view of the Chinese embassy, Australia is responsible for everything negative in the relationship.

Chinas deputy ambassador told a Canberra audience recently that those who sabotage the friendship between our two countries will be casted (sic) aside in history. Their children will be ashamed of mentioning their names in the history. In this state of mind any Australian point of difference will be treated as sabotage to be punished.

Third, Xi is consolidating Chinese Communist Party control over Chinese and Hong Kong businesses to ensure they advance the partys priorities. In 2017 Beijing adopted a National Intelligence Law, saying: Any organisation and citizen shall, in accordance with the law, support, provide assistance, and co-operate in national intelligence work, and guard the secrecy of any national intelligence work that they are aware of.

The June 2020 National Security Law for Hong Kong claims to apply the same coercive powers over Hong Kong citizens and businesses. Beijing asserts in article 38 of the law that it can apply to anyone, anywhere in the world.

At the time of the port lease, some Australian commentators dismissed concerns about Landbridges connections to the CCP as paranoia. China Matters director Linda Jakobson wrote in The Australian in November 2015: The existence of armed militias and connections to the party are integral to the way society functions in China. We just need to have a higher degree of comprehension of the way China functions and stop fearmongering. What has become clearer is that the CCP under Xi has significantly reasserted party control of the business sector. As Alibabas Jack Ma has found, displeasing the party can lead to public disappearance and hefty fines.

Not surprisingly, Chinese businesses will go to considerable lengths to please the CCP. Within China, Landbridge markets itself as the nations brand, worlds Landbridge focused on actively responding to the call of the state and contributing to the realisation of the Chinese dream.

A Landbridge corporate video of August 2019, available on YouTube, makes it clear its head office in Rizhao in southeastern Shandong province sees the Port of Darwin as building an important maritime co-operation pivot for the One Belt and One Road to contribute to China a more powerful port strength.

It would be wrong to dismiss such language as just what Chinese businesses do to curry favour with the CCP. Delivering key Xi objectives results in favourable attention from party leaders and access to financing.

The only sensible national response is to ask what Chinese business support for CCP objectives might mean for Chinese-owned and controlled Australian critical infrastructure ports, the electricity grid, gas pipelines, information technology, agricultural businesses at a time when the CCP is punishing Australia.

Fourth, American strategy is changing. Under Donald Trump and continuing under Joe Biden, the US military is reshaping its strategy for dealing with China, recognising the risk of conflict in the Indo-Pacific is sharply rising.

Washington is rapidly shaping a strategy of dispersal of its forces in times of crisis to reduce the likelihood of successful attacks on places such as Guam and Japan.

In these scenarios, northern Australia takes on added strategic importance to the security of our entire region. This explains in part why the government added $200m to total a $747m spend on defence training ranges in the north. Remember, just about every litre of fuel, every round of ammunition, every piece of military equipment used at those training ranges will be offloaded at the Port of Darwin.

Defences 2015 response to the 99-year Landbridge lease was that it was of no concern because it didnt affect the small navy base, HMAS Coonawarra. The Department of Defence secretary at the time, Dennis Richardson, told a parliamentary committee in October 2015: We can only look at this in terms of our interests. Does it raise national security concerns for us as a department? It does not. If other people have other issues about foreign ownership of whatever, that is not an issue that concerns us unless it impinges on our interests and responsibilities.

Today, Defence must look at our national security interests in the Port of Darwin, not just how many days patrol boats need to access a wharf. Darwin is emerging as a strategic location not just for Australia, but for our allies and partners. Control of the port matters even more now than in 2015.

Because China has launched on a path of regional domination, all Indo-Pacific countries must assess critical infrastructure vulnerabilities inherent in the presence of large Chinese businesses with their obligations to the CCP. This forces an uncomfortable break with past hopes for mutually beneficial business relations, but hard strategic reality must shape what happens from now.