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The Australian Defense Department is also considering whether to cancel a contract with the Chinese company Darwin port, located near the US Marines base.
Washington has been concerned about this 99-year lease, which was sold by the Northern Territory government to Landbridge from Shandong for $ 506m in 2015.
The review was announced following a major breach of an agreement between Australia and China, which led Canberra to cracking The two Belt and Road Initiative agreements between the governments of China and Victoria last week.
Peter Dutton, Australia’s Minister of Homeland Security, confirmed the news in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, saying he had asked his department to “come back with some advice” to ensure the government “manages our country’s favorite elections”.
The new law gives Canberra the “last resort” to work repeatedly to force companies to seize property in the event of a national security crisis.
But experts say anything that could happen against a Chinese business company would be difficult, as it could hurt Australian and Beijing companies. It could also replace the old technology from the Australian defense department so that the port deal does not threaten security.
“Australian security officials agreed in 2015 that the treaty did not pose a national threat,” said James Laurenceson at the University of Technology Sydney.
He also said the audit had not changed in 2018, according to Julie Bishop, Australia’s then foreign minister. And despite the Chinese people’s outrage in recent months, the government has not received any advice on possible security risks, Laurenceson added.
Last week, Dutton warned that China’s tensions over Taiwan “should not be reduced”, prompting Beijing to warn Canberra not to interfere in its affairs.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said that if he receives an emergency warning, the government will take action.
After Landbridge bought the deal, Ye Cheng, the company’s founder, said the port would be part of Beijing’s BRI plan, which oversees President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy.
Mike Hughes, vice president of Landbridge Australia, told the Financial Times that the company was aware of the illumination and wanted to participate.
The agreement passed unnoticed in Canberra, which had just signed a memorandum of understanding with Beijing. But tensions between the US-China linked to China’s sharp rise in the South China Sea have prompted Barack Obama to step up. anxiety directly by Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister at the time, about the unclaimed agreement.
Since then, Canberra has banned Huawei from its 5G network, tightened foreign exchange regulations and banned the sale of bulk products to Chinese subscribers. Beijing has criticized Canberra for focusing only on its bias and imposing trade sanctions on a number of Australian companies.
Peter Jennings, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, who they have campaigned as opposed to allowing Landbridge to continue renting, he said things had changed since 2015.
“China is now pushing for more compliance with Beijing. The obvious question is: how can we be comfortable that the most important things in Australia are being handled by Chinese companies? ”
Jennings said the government should monitor the ownership of China or Hong Kong for other important issues, including the electrical and ports network in New South Wales and the oil pipelines in Western Australia.
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