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Australia's prime minister says no link between clashes with China

Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, says there's no link between two diplomatic clashes with China.

Graeme Dobell reports that Mr Howard told local media that Australia's relations with China are still normal.

Mr Howard says there's no connection between his comments on the US defence of Taiwan last week, and China's challenge to Australian Navy ships sailing through the Taiwan Strait a fortnight ago. The Prime Minister says Australia's relations with China are better than a few years ago.
"China has always had a different view about what international law allows the vesselsw of one country to do in the territorial waters of another. There's nothing new aboutthat and I don't think we should overreact or exaggerate the significance of what has occurred in the last couples of weeks."
The Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley says Australia must not meddle between the US and China."Encouraging either the emergence of old Cold War alignments in relation to it or topoint scoring between the two of them=."

30/04/01 18:11:26 | ABC Radio Australia News

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