AFP: Row grows over Australia-China links

水兵

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090330/wl_asia_afp/australiachinamilitaryespionage;_ylt=Ajeq3HdcBOKFTaPMUUToagwBxg8F

SYDNEY(AFP) (AFP) – A row over Australia's relations with China grew more heated Monday as the opposition rejected accusations it was playing the race card and reviving fears of the "yellow peril".
               
Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull,who heads the conservative Liberal Party, dismissed the claim that hewas trying to stir up anti-China sentiment as "contemptible".
               
Turnbull had accused Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a Chinese-speaking avowed Sinophile, of acting like a "roving ambassador" for Beijing by pressing for China to be given a bigger role in the International Monetary Fund.
               
The opposition leader also attacked Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's failure to declare two trips to China paid for by a Beijing-born businesswoman. In response, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner accused Turnbull of "trying to stir up some more yellow peril sentiments, frankly."
               
Yellow peril was a racist term commonly used in the early 1900s, whenmany Australians feared Asia's large population coveted their country'swide open spaces and was intent on invading.
               
Turnbull responded Monday by accusing Tanner of avoiding the centralissue of the national interest and raising "spectres of racism and casting back to bygone eras".
               
Tanner's remarks "suggest we should just fall into line with whatever China wants," Turnbull told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard defended the integrity of Australia's relationship with Beijing, calling China an "emerging superpower".
               
The government had to engage with the Asian giant because of its role and size in the region and its position as Australia's second biggest trading partner, she told ABC radio.
               
Gillard accused the opposition of making "absurd propositions" intrying to create concern about some kind conspiracy between the government and China.
               
The debate has been fueled by newspaper reports that two senior Chinese government officials have travelled to Australia for talks with Rudd without local media being informed of the meetings.
               
The visits -- by security and intelligence chief Zhou Yongkang last year and by propaganda chief Li Changchun last week -- were reported by Chinese media but no information was provided locally, the Sydney Morning Herald said.