China Warns Australia: Don’t Politicise Darwin Port Dispute

China’s not happy with Australia’s plan to take back control of the Darwin Port from a Chinese-owned company — and they’re making their feelings pretty clear.

Both the Labor government and the Coalition opposition have now pledged to scrap the 99-year lease currently held by Chinese company Landbridge, no matter who wins the next election. Basically, it's one of the few things both sides actually agree on. But Beijing isn’t impressed, warning that turning the port lease into a political football could hurt the recently-improved relationship between the two countries.

A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, said Australia should stop using national security as an excuse and avoid politicising “normal business cooperation.” He also called on the Australian government to create a “fair and predictable” environment for Chinese companies operating here.

To rewind a bit — the port was originally leased to Landbridge back in 2015, during the Turnbull Coalition government. Opposition leader Peter Dutton now says that decision was a mistake and is promising to find an Aussie buyer by the end of the year — or forcefully acquire it, if needed, using taxpayer money.

“This is in our country’s best interest,” Dutton said. “We know we live in uncertain times, and the government’s had three years to fix this — they haven’t.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, for his part, says the government has been working behind the scenes “for some time” to bring the port back under Australian control. He also had a few words about how we got here in the first place, blaming the Abbott government’s 2014 “asset recycling” policy for encouraging states and territories to sell off key infrastructure — including the Darwin Port.

Since Labor came to power in 2022, relations between Australia and China have slowly started to thaw after hitting rock bottom a few years ago. That low point came when the Morrison government pushed for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and raised concerns about foreign interference — which led to China slapping billions of dollars’ worth of trade sanctions on Aussie exports.

At one point, it was estimated that $20 billion in trade was lost.

So yeah, the Darwin Port issue is reopening some old wounds. And while both sides of Australian politics seem united on reclaiming control of the port, there’s still the tricky matter of doing it without sparking another diplomatic storm.