MELBOURNE - China has warned that criticisms levelled at the nation's government by Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton risk damage to ties between the key trading partners.
"We strongly condemn his malicious slur on the Communist Party of China, which constitutes an outright provocation to the Chinese people," the embassy said in the statement."Such ridiculous rhetoric severely harms the mutual trust between China and Australia and betrays the common interests of the two peoples."
"We have a very important trading relationship with China," Dutton told reporters in Canberra."But we're not going to allow university students to be unduly influenced, we're not going to allow theft of intellectual property and we're not going to allow our government bodies or non-government bodies to be hacked into."
Exporters in Australia have previously expressed concern that the political tensions are having a direct impact. Mining giant Glencore earlier this year blamed the dispute for delays to coal imports, while Australian beef and wine suppliers have said frictions led to their products being held up at Chinese ports.
So Australia should allow the CCP to hack their computers and threaten their students with no complaints? No. 😡