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South China Morning Post
28-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Port in storm threat to China-Australia ties
Just when frayed relations between Beijing and Canberra are on the mend, Australia's efforts to balance a security relationship with the United States and its trading relationship with China have hit a snag. China has intervened in a move to unwind Chinese control of a strategic asset – Darwin port on Australia's northern border. The case has the potential for another flare-up similar to that over the proposal by Hong Kong's CK Hutchison Holdings to sell off container ports including two strategically and politically sensitive operations on the Panama Canal. Chinese firm Landbridge Group was awarded a 99-year lease of the Darwin facility in 2015, under a deal approved by the Northern Territory government, but criticised by the then US president, Barack Obama. The port is not far from where US marines conduct exercises. Investment and management by Landbridge have since turned the port into a profitable operation. Facing criticism ahead of a recent election, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government was working on a plan to buy back the port on national interest grounds, saying it needed to be 'in Australian hands'. Xiao Qian, China's ambassador to Canberra, said: 'Such an enterprise deserves encouragement, not punishment. It is ethically questionable to lease the port when it was unprofitable and then seek to reclaim it once it becomes profitable.' Xiao urged the Australian government to create a fair, transparent and predictable business environment for Chinese companies in Australia. From China's perspective, this case may serve as a cautionary tale about investing abroad, particularly in certain countries. Australia, after all, is a US ally. But if the port is returned to Australian hands, there would be doubts whether Australia could stand up to US pressure in future. That is why China has spoken up. There is likely to be a much tougher geopolitical environment ahead. Canberra should be mindful of warming bilateral relations, with China having lifted trade bans on Australian exports in December. That is thanks in part to a more pragmatic approach from Canberra to relations with Beijing since ties were damaged years ago by security reforms targeting China and a call for an independent inquiry into the origins of Covid-19.
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Business Standard
17-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: How we manage change can turn the future around
Hello, and welcome to BS Views, our daily wrap of the opinion page. Today's columnists assess change, and the various forms it takes - from Trump's flip-flops to changing the ideal of what a company should do, to the Indian cricket team's leadership churn, from data that throws up new realities to new realities that must force change on our borders. Read on. In our lead column today, Max Hastings argues that US President Donald Trump's dislike of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as his penchant for deal-making, has given Russia's President Vladimir Putin a clear upper hand at the negotiating table. Witness how Trump refused to show up for the peace talks because Putin wasn't going to be there. The Russian president is probably gambling that if he hangs on, the transactional US president will sooner or later walk away, because he sees nothing in Ukraine for himself, allowing Russia to eventually become the hegemon in the region. In today's National Interest, Shekhar Gupta notes that Pakistan and its proxies are prone to a predictable seven-year itch. In other words, India gets about seven years of deterrent capability after each terror attack. Will this near-war, India's strongest military response so far, buy India another seven years of deterrence? While it was a formidable punitive package, the facts and history, are yet to convince that an Indian deterrence against use of terror as state policy has been established. To do this, he writes, after this is over, India must look generations ahead and invest in one front only. A big economy with faith in its future needs defence that isn't just impregnable, but deters at least one of its two adversaries. Done right, this one front will cease to matter. R Gopalakrishnan considers the old debate about family-managed versus professional-run companies and comes away convinced that the future belongs to 'professional entrepreneurial managers', a mix of efficiency and startup thinking. Nonetheless, he remains committed to so-called 'deergha ayush' (long lived) enterprises because of their social as well as economic value as long as they remain purposeful. As a cautionary tale, he points to a technically deerga-ayush company, Credit Suisse, that proved it is expensive for society to extend the life of a company that is no longer capable or purposeful. Devangshu Datta looks to an unlikely source of data to understand underreporting of Covid fatalities and its impact, and over-reporting of Maha Kumbh visitors: Indian Railways. The number of passengers on IR is yet to reach it's pre-Covid levels, he points out. The undercounting of deaths has knock-on effects such as insurance payouts as well as allocation of health resources. Similarly, he finds that Railways data doesn't really register a jump during the Maha Kumbh, suggesting that the state government's claims of a revenue windfall may not hold water. Vishal Menon notes that Australian tours appear to have a decisive role in concluding the careers of Indian batting greats. In 2012, a good 13 years ago, India's calamitous tour of Australia ended the careers of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, he recalls, and draws a parallel to the current exits of stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. With no clear frontleader for the top job, the job now must fall to Gambhir to instil the virtues of playing Test cricket in a generation of players raised on an IPL diet. In essence, he says, Gambhir has a stiff task ahead: Turn boys into men.
