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JOURNALIST: First on the incident with the Chinese helicopter. Do you see that having any impact on the impending visit of the Chinese Premier later this year? And secondly, in relation to Beef Week. There’s a lot of talk here –
PRIME MINISTER: I’ll answer the first and then I might come back, mate. On the incident that we have reported on, we have made very strong representations at every level to China about this incident, which we regard as unprofessional and unacceptable. Australian Defence Force personnel were going about their job. Their job in international waters, but also in international skies, to support the United Nations in the sanctions that they have against the North Korean regime. That is part of Australia being good global citizens and Australian Defence Force personnel should not be at risk whilst they’re doing that. So we have a very clear position there. We do have communications with China. That includes visits and the Chinese Premier will be here in June. We will make our position clear as well in discussions, as we do. One of the things that had broken down over a period of time was any dialogue. Dialogue is important. It’s always, always important to have avenues of communication, and that’s why we’ve used all of those avenues of communication to make our position on this incident very clear.
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JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on the flare situation. You mentioned communication with China. Will you be raising that incident directly with Beijing and will you be raising it when the Premier comes in June?
PRIME MINISTER: We have raised it with Beijing, and we always raise areas of agreement and also areas of disagreement when we had that dialogue.
JOURNALIST: This happened after you sought cooperation with countries like the Philippines. Do you think this is an act of Beijing in trying to intimidate Australia to keep us out?
PRIME MINISTER: The circumstances of this, I can’t speak to the motivation of what’s occurred here. I can say though, that it’s unprofessional and unacceptable. That’s our position very clearly.
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Source: Office of the Australian Prime Minister
Speaker: The Hon. Anthony Albanese MP, Prime Minister of Australia
Format: Press Conference
China Policy Research 