Federal Defence Minister takes aim at China’s ‘consistently bad’ behaviour

Federal Defence Minister Peter Dutton has taken aim at the Chinese government over “consistently bad” international behaviour, after a RAAF P-8A Poseidon was stuck by a military-grade laser while monitoring a Chinese ship in the Arafura Sea on Thursday.

Mr Dutton says such incidents need to be publicised because “we don’t want it to happen again”.

“The acts of aggression we’re seeing in the East China Sea toward Japan by the Chinese government, the acts of aggression we’re seeing on the India-China land border against India, there’s a pattern of behaviour here and the pattern of behaviour is … consistently bad from the government of China,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“We need to be frank, and honest and open about it.”

The Australian government has reached out to the Chinese government to discuss the “very serious” Arafura Sea incident, and has not yet received a response.

“There’s obviously a pattern of conduct here that the Chinese government is ramping up, and they think through that intimidation that somehow the Australian government will cower, which, of course, we won’t,” Mr Dutton said.

Press PLAY below to hear Mr Dutton on the Chinese laser attack + the likelihood of war between Russia and Ukraine

Chinese laser attack on Australian aircraft had ‘potential to be quite serious’

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