Posted on 02/18/2021 6:28:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Beijing’s Belt and Road deal with the Australian state government of Victoria looks set to be torn up in weeks as the deadline for the states’ to inform the federal government of all foreign agreements draws nearer.
Speaking to the Herald Sun, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he saw no benefit to Victoria’s deal with Beijing and signalled that the agreement would be unlikely to stand under the bill.
“If there are benefits, what are they and what was paid for them? I don’t have the answers to those questions at this point, but the assessment of those arrangements will continue,” Morrison said.
Under the new Foreign Relations Bill—passed on Dec. 3, 2020—state governments have until March 10 to inform the Federal government of all deals with foreign powers.
The foreign affairs minister then has the power to veto those arrangements if they are deemed not in Australia’s interests.
“That’s a very important principle … There has to be consistency when national governments deal with other national governments,” Morrison said.
Despite the bill being listed as one of 14 grievances listed by Beijing, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has defended the infrastructure deal maintaining that it’s all about jobs.
“My concern has always been to grow jobs,” he told reporters in August 2020.
“And I’ve always seen these arrangements and all of our arrangements, not just with any one country but with all the different countries, different states, different provinces, different regions that we have relationships with, they’ve always been about a passport to export.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
Additionally, under the deal, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is reported to significantly undercut foreign companies for infrastructure bids and loan unserviceable amounts to countries that cannot afford the BRI projects, resulting in debt-trap diplomacy.
The Chinese regime then extracts political and economic concessions from such countries, such as in the Pacific region, which then poses a national security risk for the Western world, Associate Professor Michael Clarke from the National Security College at the Australian National University told News Corp.
Hey, not a problem.
JoHo will pick up the slack and bring that deal right on over here to the new USSA!
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Australia needs a 2nd Amendment...
If the Chinese use their typical “tofu dregs” construction method the roads would be un-drivable within a few months.
CC
They need to take back the port in Darwin.
A Chinatown of Road builders coming near you?
Won’t matter - the suckers that signed the contracts never read the fine print. Any undrivability isn’t China’s problem and if the host nation doesn’t fix it, then China owns it...
And if they do fix it, China owns it...
Good on the Aussies to get rogue sellouts under control.
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