It mentioned legislation to thwart foreign interference and give the Commonwealth the power to veto deals between a foreign power and state and local governments, as well as universities.
Other gripes were stopping Huawei from being part of the 5G network; Australia having a free press; funding for “anti-China” research at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute; raids on Chinese journalists and academic visa cancellations; “spearheading a crusade” in multilateral forums on Chinas affairs in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang; calling for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19; and blocking 10 Chinese foreign investment deals across infrastructure, agriculture and animal husbandry sectors.
An embassy official warned “China is angry”.
“If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy,” he said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to be cowed.
“We won’t be compromising on the fact that we will set what our foreign investment laws are or how we build our 5G telecommunications networks or how we run our systems of protecting against interference Australias way we run our country.”
“We won’t be changing any of that and I can tell you, in that list you would have seen that apparently the media and freely elected politicians apparently aren’t allowed to speak their minds.
“We won’t be changing that in Australia either. So we’ll continue to be ourselves. We will stand up for our national interests but we’ll engage with our partners respectively.”
Mr Morrison has just returned from a quick trip to Japan where he and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga reached in-principle agreement on a mutual defence pact.