BEIJING, Aug 19 (Reuters) – China urged Australia to heed its stance on the Rio Tinto case and over the restive Xinjiang region but said the two nations should protect their broader ties, a day after they signed a $41 billion gas deal.
The comments from China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday were in answer to questions from Reuters about Australia’s statement that Beijing had scrapped a visit by Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei because Canberra had given a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uighur leader from Xinjiang.
China blames Kadeer for instigating last month’s ethnic riots in Xinjiang province, when Uighurs attacked Han Chinese, a charge she has repeatedly denied.
Ties between Beijing and Canberra have also come under strain since China detained four staff of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, including Australian Stern Hu.
They were formally arrested last week on suspicion of obtaining commercial secrets and bribery. Rio has said the staff did no wrong and it will defend them.
In a fax to Reuters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang did not confirm that his visit was scrapped because of the dispute over Rebiya Kadeer, but underlined China’s concerns.
“China’s stance is clear. Australia is also clear about our concerns,” he said of that dispute and the accusations against the Rio Tinto employees.
Using the broad language of Chinese diplomacy, however, Qin also indicated Beijing did not want the friction to escalate.
“We hope that along with Australia that we can continue developing relations in a correct direction, respecting and taking into account each other’s interests and concerns, and appropriately handling sensitive issues in bilateral relations,” said Qin. “Use practical actions to protect broader cooperation between China and Australia.”
Qin’s comments came a day after the Australian government said U.S. major ExxonMobil Corp had signed a deal to sell liquefied natural gas from its share of an LNG project in Australia to PetroChina. The deal is worth about A$50 billion ($41.29 billion).
Analysts have said that while political relations soured in the wake of the Rio arrests and contention over Xinjiang, commercial deals between Australia and China should be largely unaffected because both countries need each other too much.
Australia’s Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, has been visiting Beijing to mark the gas deal and meet Chinese officials.
China has also lashed out at France, Germany and other countries after they held high-level meetings with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader who Beijing calls a “separatist.”
In those cases, Beijing usually put aside its irritation after claiming the other side had heeded its complaints. Its recent anger with Canberra appears likely to follow that pattern.
But the China Daily, the country’s official English-language newspaper, suggested rancour could linger for a while yet.
“…the recent events and developments suggest that forces seeking to keep the two sides apart are thriving, and Canberra is responsible for that,” the paper said in an editorial.
(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
