After a period of silence, Australia has recently begun to find its presence in the international community. Just this week, the "Indo-Pacific" strategic circle led by the United States will successively arrive in Melbourne, the capital of Australia, to participate in the "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue" foreign ministers' meeting of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India on the 11th.
According to the Global Times, US Secretary of State Blinken arrived in Melbourne, Australia, on the 9th, starting the first stop of his Indo-Pacific journey. Blinken said that the United States is implementing a "dual-track" strategy in diplomacy, and responding to the "Russian-Ukrainian crisis" is still the focus of the current US diplomacy, but Indo-Pacific affairs are also the focus of the United States. He said the first priority of Australia's visit was to meet with the foreign ministers of the members of the Quartet Security Dialogue.
At the same time, Indian Foreign Minister Jaithon Sujak will also visit Australia for the first time as a foreign minister from the 10th to the 13th, and in addition to participating in the "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue" foreign ministers' meeting, bilateral dialogues will also be held with the Australian foreign minister. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshinori Hayashi will also start his trip to Australia from the 10th, and then will travel to Hawaii to participate in the us, Japan, and South Korea foreign ministers' meeting.
In this regard, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded on the 9th that he hoped that the United States and other relevant countries would see the general trend, calm their minds, abandon the Cold War mentality, add less "oil and vinegar" to regional state relations, and "add bricks and tiles" to regional peace, stability and prosperity.
In fact, long before the us, Japanese, Indian, and foreign ministers arrived in Australia, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Lands Bergis traveled thousands of miles to Australia to seek "foreign aid" and held relevant talks with Australian Foreign Minister Payne to "warm up" with the Australian side on the Issue of China. Although the Australian side has expressed its support verbally, it has not relaxed on the Taiwan issue.
It is reported that Foreign Minister Lands Bergis and Australian Foreign Minister Payne held a joint press conference after the meeting, and the two sides claimed that they would jointly deal with the "economic coercion" from China. The foreign minister also coined a new word at the press conference, claiming that the country is an "exclusive club" after Australia to join china's economic and trade targets. In response to Foreign Minister Landsbergis's remarks, Australian Foreign Minister Payne reiterated at the press conference that he would not consider changing the name of the "Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Macao" and would continue to pursue the one-China principle.
As we all know, it was precisely because Lithuania openly announced that it would set up a "representative office in Lithuania and Taiwan" in the first place that led to the deterioration of relations between the neutral two countries. And Australia, which has "similarities" with it, also last year, because it acted as a "pawn" of the United States' trade sanctions against China, a series of trade frictions and contradictions and conflicts with China arose, and it paid a painful price for it. It will allow Lithuania to seize the opportunity to use this to form gangs and rake China.
In fact, in the case of Lithuania, Australia was very eager to "get a kick" last month. Late last month, the EU wanted to turn to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for advice on neutral trade. Subsequently, Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan followed up with a statement saying Australia had a "substantial interest" in the trade lawsuit and would seek consultations.
He claims that Australia opposes the use of "economic coercion", discrimination and restrictive trade practices, which undermine the rules-based international trading system and cause economic damage. "We are committed to upholding and supporting the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core." Dan Tehan's statement is actually in favor of Lithuania's troubles, but Australian officials also understand that excessive involvement in neutrality will only continue to worsen Sino-Australian relations, so they will also use their lips on related issues.
The reason why Australia wants to support Lithuania is actually just to borrow more people to create momentum. Prior to this, Australia had suffered huge losses by provoking China on China-related issues. Although the US government has verbally appeased Morrison many times, it has not taken any substantive action, and even grabbed Australia's import and export orders into its own hands. Even so, Australia is also angry and dare not speak, but is looking for opportunities everywhere to win over the EU and embolden itself. Because they are also afraid of becoming the next Lithuania, ruthlessly abandoned by the United States.
On February 7, local time, Australian Defense Ministry Yardon once again publicly advocated that in the past period of time, the United States and its allies have been "acquiescing" to China's "militarization" in the South China Sea, and now Australia must stand up to confront China in the South China Sea.
Some analysts believe that The Australian Defense Ministry's Darton suddenly made this remark at this time, which is also to echo the visit of the US secretary of state, and also wants to provoke the United States to continue to confront China by playing up the so-called "China threat". This remark also reflects Australia's strategic anxiety about the situation it is facing, on the one hand, it wants to ease relations with China, and on the other hand, it is afraid that if it is not strong in opposing China, it will be kicked off the ship by the United States. Even Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently signaled to China a desire to restart the dialogue.
Although the Morrison administration intends to show goodwill to China, it has been slow to move in action, and even coordinated with the Biden administration to frequently manipulate the Taiwan issue, and threatened that if the United States promised to send troops to "defend Taiwan", Australia would also participate in military operations.
Australia is also very clear that if it takes so-called substantive action on the issue of the Taiwan region, then the relationship between China and Australia will be difficult to restore in a short period of time, And Lithuania is a lesson for the past, and Australia will not easily "fall into the pit", because they know that this is China's "forbidden area".
It can be seen that the Australian government is still not ready to ease relations with China, but is gradually drifting away from the "cooperation" with the United States. Learning from the ugly face of the United States, while showing favors, it also wants to threaten China in order to gain greater benefits from it. However, China is not a bully, and it will not back down in the face of the Australian threat, because we all know that bleeding wounds will only attract more sharks.