Canberra Mocked And Threatened By Chinese Propaganda By ‘Asian NATO’ Alliance

A Chinese newspaper has disparaged Australia and Japan as “American tools” in what is becoming an increasingly contentious Indo-Pacific scenario.

“It is inevitable that China will adopt some kind of countermeasures,” he said. Global times wrote, in an opinion piece, about Australia’s close alliance with Beijing’s oldest enemy.

Chinese navy ships take part in a drill in the waters off Zhoushan, east China’s Zhejiang province. (AP / AAP)

The English language Global times is a nationalist and pro-military propaganda media outlet, aimed at a western audience.

Global times He warned that Australia “will pay a price” if it continues to move towards an Asia-NATO alliance with the United States, Japan and India.

“When the military confrontation in the region intensifies, as far as all the countries in the region are concerned, China should have the greatest resistance,” the newspaper predicted.

“Countries like Japan and Australia have been used as America’s tools,” he said.

Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga elbow to greet before the official welcoming ceremony at Suga’s official residence in Tokyo on November 17, 2020. (AP)

“It is fair to say that Japan and Australia set a bad example by interpreting their biggest trading partner China as a ‘security threat’, acting at the behest of the United States.”

Morrison has held talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in Tokyo, where Chinese expansionism, defense, trade and a coronavirus travel bubble are on the agenda.

Global times He insisted that China was interested in “peaceful development” in the Indo-Pacific, stating: “The United States, Japan and Australia are forcing China to explore deeper military cooperation with others.”

Satellite image of Woody Island in the Paracel island chain in the South China Sea taken in November 2017 shows two Chinese Y-8 military transport aircraft. The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says China has made further deployments of military aircraft to the island in recent weeks. Other outposts in the disputed South China Sea have undergone major construction work during 2017. (AAP)

Canberra’s relationship with Beijing is at a very low point, with China showing its commercial strength to ban Australian imports of coal, beef, wine, timber, grains and lobsters.

Beijing’s construction of islands in the South China Sea and its declaration of an air defense zone in the waters of the East China Sea has disturbed the United States and alarmed regional neighbors such as Japan.

China has slowly been consolidating its military presence on seven artificial islands in the South China Sea, incorporating defense systems and increasing radar capabilities.

An aerial photograph of a man-made island built by China in the South China Sea. — An aerial photograph of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea. (Supplied)

The Chinese missile frigate Yuncheng launches an anti-ship missile during a military exercise in the waters near Hainan Island and the Paracel Islands in southern China. (AP)

Still to be formally signed, the Reciprocal Access Agreement would allow troops to visit each other’s countries for training and joint operations.

It would also improve their interoperability and cooperation.

The agreement is the first of its kind for Japan since its 1960 status-of-forces agreement with the United States, which set the terms for the base of some 50,000 American troops to operate in and around Japan under the security pact between Japan and the United States.

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