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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 29 Jan 202629 Jan 2026<\/p>\n
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China\u2019s ambassador to Australia has warned Canberra against taking control of a port whose lease to a Chinese-owned company has been heavily scrutinised over its strategic significance.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Xiao Qian criticised the Australian government\u2019s moves as unethical and \u201cno way to do business\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Landbridge Group, owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, has controlled Port Darwin, located in Australia\u2019s remote Northern Territory, since 2015 under a 99-year lease agreement.<\/p>\n
Australian authorities reached the $350m lease deal with Shandong province-based Landbridge in the hope the port\u2019s expansion would revitalise the economy of the largely rural territory.<\/p>\n
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged to return the port to Australian control during campaigning ahead of national elections in May last year, saying the facility should be run by a local company or the government.<\/p>\n
In his annual briefing to local media, Xiao said,\u00a0\u201cWhen you\u2019re losing money, you want to lease it to a foreign company, and when it\u2019s making money, you want to take it back?\u201d<\/p>\n
The ambassador said Beijing would \u201ctake measures\u201d to defend Landbridge\u2019s interests if the Australian government tried to forcibly alter the lease agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will see when it\u2019s time for us to say something, do something, to reflect the Chinese government\u2019s position and protect our Chinese companies\u2019 legitimate interests,\u201d he said, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
Responding to Xiao\u2019s comments during a visit to East Timor on Wednesday, Albanese repeated his intention to return the facility to Australian control, describing it as being in the \u201cnational interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite years of controversy amid claims the port deal poses national security risks, multiple government reviews, including one commissioned by Albanese, concluded there were no grounds to cancel or alter the agreement with the Chinese firm.<\/p>\n
China is Australia\u2019s top trading partner, with two-way trade in 2024-25 totalling $218bn, though relations between Beijing and Canberra have been tested in recent years by disputes over issues such as national security and human rights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s envoy says Beijing will \u2018take measures\u2019 to defend Chinese firm\u2019s interests if Canberra takes over Port Darwin.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,64,63,512,164,4217,10523,44,10649],"class_list":{"0":"post-444576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-infrastructure","14":"tag-international-trade","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-trade-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444576","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=444576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}