China’s Belt And Road Deals Used For Propaganda – Australia Minister

China’s Belt and Road Initiative deals are “used for propaganda”, a top Australian official said Thursday as he defended Canberra’s decision to scrap a state government’s deals with Beijing.
Australia on Wednesday overruled Victoria state’s decision to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — the flagship of President Xi Jinping’s geostrategic vision for the Asia-Pacific region –
saying the agreement was inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy.
As relations between the two countries continue to nosedive, Defence Minister Peter Dutton said Canberra was “worried” about local governments entering into such agreements with Beijing.
“We can’t allow these sort of compacts… to pop up because they’re used for propaganda reasons and we’re just not going to allow that to happen,” he told local radio.
Dutton said the government’s problem was not with the Chinese people but rather “the values or virtues or the outlook of the Chinese Communist Party”
Australia last year enacted new powers — widely seen as targeting China — that allow it to scrap any agreements between state authorities and foreign countries deemed to threaten the national interest.
Canberra’s first target was the BRI, a vast network of investments that critics say is cover for Beijing to create geopolitical and financial leverage.
In a statement released early Thursday, the Chinese embassy in Australia called it a “unreasonable and provocative” move.