China’s efforts to gain a greater stake in Australia’s resource industry suffered a new setback yesterday when a Chinese miner dropped a US$400 million bid for a controlling stake in an Australian rare earths miner.
Earlier yesterday, the Australian defense department rejected a separate Chinese investment in an outback mining venture, saying it threatened national security.
China’s latest failed attempt to gain a larger slice of Australia’s raw materials will upset the already strained ties between Canberra and Bejing.
China is Australia’s biggest export market, with trade worth US$53 billion last year, but ties soured in August when China arrested an Australian mining executive and Canberra granted a visa to exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.
China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co Ltd (CNMC) terminated its bid for Lynas Corp, owner of the world’s largest undeveloped deposit of rare earths, citing stiff conditions imposed by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.
There is strong public and political opposition in Australia to China’s moves to gain a greater hold of its resource industry.
Australia’s Defense Department said yesterday that it would not support a proposed joint venture between Wugang Australia Resources, a wholly owned unit of Chinese state-owned Wuhan Iron and Steel, and Australia’s Western Plains Resources.
The proposed deal would have seen Chinese magnetite resource investment inside the outback Woomera missile range, used as a weapons-testing ground by the military and Australian allies.
The military’s lack of support means there is virtually no chance that approval will be given.
Australian Defense Minister John Faulkner said the defense department’s rejection of the deal had nothing to do with China, but was purely a security issue.
“The Woomera test range is a significant contributor to Australia’s defense capability, and that of our allies, and that’s the focus that defence brings to bear on these issues,” he said.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
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