Australian Prime Minister: Injury of divers caused by Chinese warship operations will damage Australia-China relations – International – China Times News Network

A few days ago, an interaction between an Australian Navy warship and a Chinese warship resulted in the injury of an Australian military diver. Australian Defense Minister Marles claimed that China’s actions were “unsafe and unprofessional.” Australian Prime Minister Albanese commented on this for the first time today, saying that the incident was “harmful to Australia-China relations.”

Reuters reported that Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles previously said that the long-range frigate “HMAS Toowoomba” (HMAS Toowoomba) was conducting a diving operation in Japan’s exclusive economic zone on the 14th to clear a fishing net entangled in the propeller. this incident.

Anthony Albanese met briefly with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in San Francisco last week. Albanese faces domestic political pressure on whether to raise the issue with Chinese leaders face to face.

Albanese said in an exclusive interview with Sky News Australia today that the incident in which one person was injured showed the need for “communication guardrails” between the Australian and Chinese militaries.

“The actions of the Chinese warships are dangerous, unsafe and unprofessional,” he said.

He said he had raised the incident with China through “all normal channels.” But he did not disclose whether he discussed the matter in a private meeting with Xi Jinping.

Albanese said: “The consequence of these types of incidents is that they do damage the relationship between the two countries. This is certainly an incident that will cause damage (relationships) and we have made that clear to China.”

Marlers previously stated that at the time of the incident, although the Tuuba ship had notified the Chinese destroyer that Australia was conducting a diving operation and asked to keep a distance, the destroyer still approached at “close range” and operated in a manner that posed a safety risk Shipboard sonar. Afterwards, medical evaluation determined that the minor injuries suffered by the divers may have been caused by the Chinese destroyer’s sonar.