Former Australian foreign affairs minister Bob Carr will attend a major military parade in China alongside the leaders of Iran, North Korea and Russia.<\/p>\n
The “Victory Day” parade in Tiananmen Square is set to mark 80 years since Japan’s surrender in World War II, and will include a display of new Chinese military technology and an address by President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n
China’s assistant foreign minister, Hong Lei, on Thursday released a list of foreign heads of state and former politicians expected to attend the event, including Mr Carr and former Victorian premier Dan Andrews.<\/p>\n
They were listed alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dan Andrews was included on the guest list but has not confirmed whether he will attend. (AAP: James Ross\/File)<\/p>\n
No current Australian politicians were included, nor any Western foreign leaders.<\/p>\n
Mr Carr, a former Labor politician who served as the minister for foreign affairs and as premier of New South Wales, told the ABC that he was happy to be attending the event.<\/p>\n
“The Chinese victory over Japan is a historic event worth celebrating,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Carr said he was not concerned that the event would also be attended by leaders from nations hostile to Australia.<\/p>\n
“Well, it’s precisely the company that the prime minister will be in when he visits on Australia’s behalf at the United Nations General Assembly,” he said.<\/p>\n
The former minister instead said he was expecting to spend his time with diplomats from South-East Asia and former leaders from New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Helen Clark and John Key, both former prime ministers of New Zealand, are also on the guest list.<\/p>\n
Mr Carr added that he would pay his own way and would be advocating for Australia’s interests.<\/p>\n
“It’s in Australia’s interest to work for a good relationship with China and I don’t apologise for one moment for making my contribution.”<\/p>\n
Mr Andrews has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Australian foreign affairs minister Bob Carr will attend a major military parade in China alongside the leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[75202,512,69,43,44,84,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-104267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bob-carr","tag-china","tag-federal-government","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}