SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Australia, China hold 'professional' defence talks
Sydney, March 23 (AFP) Mar 23, 2023
China and Australia held defence talks focused on regional security issues, officials said Thursday, just days after Beijing condemned Canberra's plan to deploy a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Australian defence officials hosted a team from the People's Liberation Army for the discussions in Canberra on Wednesday, an Australian defence spokesperson said.

The half-day talks were the latest sign that China and Australia are re-engaging after a diplomatic freeze, despite jostling over China's expanding diplomatic and military influence in the Pacific.

China warned Australia, Britain and the United States they were walking "a path of error and danger" after their March 13 announcement of a long-term deal to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines armed with cruise missiles.

Australia plans to buy up to five US nuclear-powered submarines, then build a new model with US and British technology.

The decades-long deal has sparked debate about the cost -- hundreds of billions of dollars over three decades -- and the strategy of binding its future defence closely to the United States and Britain.

Australia's centre-left Labor government has worked to repair relations with China since coming to power in May last year.

The defence minister, Richard Marles, who spoke twice last year with China's General Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of regional meetings, said he was pleased that "normal dialogue" had resumed.

He declined to give further details of the discussions.

This week's talks -- "conducted in a professional atmosphere" according to the Australians -- were the first formal meeting of the two countries' defence officials since 2019.

China suspended high-level diplomatic meetings and slapped hefty tariffs on key Australian exports such as barley, beef and wine in 2020 at the height of a bitter dispute with the former conservative government.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
UK opens competitive bid for GBP 75 million orbital cleanup mission
UK invests $191 mn in European satellite firm Eutelsat
Bearings Used in Space Technologies: Engineering for the Final Frontier

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Atomic 6 receives 2M Space Force award to advance next generation solar arrays
ESA and Neuraspace develop autonomous satellite navigation technologies
Planet secures 240 million euro satellite services contract with German government

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
France says Australia defence ties repaired after submarine row
Trump: U.S. to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine, EU to pay bill
Ukraine, Russia trade blows in escalating spy war

24/7 News Coverage
Ancient zircon data reveals tectonic origin of Earth's first continental crust
Autonomous sub explores unexplored trench depths to reveal critical mineral clues
Europe launches first geostationary atmospheric sounder to boost extreme weather forecasts



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.