By Elishya Perera
SYDNEY, Australia (CWBN)_ The Australian Parliament passed a new law that gives the foreign minister powers to scrap agreements reached between state governments and overseas governments, including China’s Belt and Road initiative in Australia, which could further inflame tensions between the two countries.
The laws which were passed by parliament today (Dec 8) permits the foreign minister to scrap such agreements drawn up by bodies such as local authorities and universities of Australia’s eight states and territories.
Accordingly, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government has the opportunity to curtail foreign involvement in a wide range of industries including infrastructure, health and education, science, trade cooperation, as well as university research partnerships.
These new laws are expected to influence Australia’s relationship with its largest trading partner, China, as tensions between the two countries began to grow following PM Morrison’s call for an investigation into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Subsequently, China slapped Canberra with economic sanctions in retaliation. Relations between the trade partners hit a fresh low last week after a senior government official in Beijing shared a highly distressing fabricated war crimes photo of an Australian soldier slitting a child’s throat.
While, PM Morrison called the image “repugnant”, and demanded an apology from Beijing, however, China has not backed down from the tweet and said there will be no apology.
Accordingly, an early target of the new laws is likely to be an agreement signed between the Victoria state government and China’s signature infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Last week, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters that his government is not willing to withdraw from its BRI agreement despite Australia’s worsening ties with Beijing.
Apart from the BRI agreement with Victoria, the new law permits the federal government to overturn any other memorandums of understanding signed between China and state governments of Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.
According to PM Morrison, at least 130 agreements formed by state governments with 30 overseas governments could be affected by the new law, including partnerships between Beijing-sponsored bodies and Australian universities.
