Canberra should discard its tainted prism: China Daily editorial

The current Australian government under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won credit for quickly moving to improve ties with China after taking office. And as a result of the efforts by both sides, there has been an upturn in China-Australia ties this year.

Yet Canberra's anxieties about China clearly run deep, as shown by a decision on a lithium acquisition case last week.

After receiving advice from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board, Australia Treasurer Jim Chalmers issued a prohibition order on Friday, stopping Austroid Australia from acquiring an additional stake in the financially stricken lithium miner Alita Resources.

Alita collapsed into insolvency in 2019 amid a slump in lithium prices and its Bald Hill mine in the Eastern Goldfields region was shut down. The mine has estimated reserves of 11.3 million metric tons of lithium ore and 2 million metric tons of tantalum ore.

The proposed deal would have given the local subsidiary of US-based Austroid Corporation a 100 percent stake in Alita. It was apparently nixed, because Austroid Australia has a Chinese national as a director, who is also a director of the Chinese company, Liatam Mining, which tried to buy Alita's assets in 2020 but was unable to get FIRB approval.

The latest decision is disheartening as both sides have everything to gain from maintaining the positive momentum that has revived the ties.

Bilateral ties stopped plummeting and instead demonstrated an upward tendency: Statistics show China-Australia trade reached 800 billion yuan ($111.7 billion), up 16.4 percent year-on-year in the first six months of this year, indicating a steady improvement in economic relations.

It is especially disappointing as the decision came just a week after Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong pledged Canberra would promote greater progress in the Australia-China comprehensive strategic partnership when speaking with China's senior diplomat Wang Yi in Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 14.

Canberra should view China through an impartial and objective lens and not blindly follow Washington's "Indo-Pacific" line.

Even if the United States keeps slipping deeper into an anti-China hysteria, it does not necessarily mean Australia cannot take a different path that better serves its own interests. To maintain its global hegemony and revive its waning clout in the world arena, the US is stoking geopolitical tensions and bloc confrontation, even at the expense of using its own allies as pawns.

Australia should be clear-eyed and be wise enough to recognize that its national interests are not always in line with those of the US. Keeping its policymaking autonomous would best benefit the country rather than the US.