Chinese Lease at Port of Darwin: Strategic Risk for Australia?

Few strategic issues have galvanized public attention in Australia as the decision by the Northern Territory Government to lease key facilities in the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company, Landbridge.

This Strategic Insights brings together items published on our blog The Strategist as well as articles by ASPI staff published in other media outlets such as The Australian and The Australian Financial Review.

Our aim is to bring this material into an accessible format, in part, to assist the deliberations of the Senate Economic References Committee which, over January and February 2016, is conducting an inquiry into the foreign investment review framework including with reference to the Port of Darwin lease.

ASPI has published a range of diverse opinions on this topic, including from American observers puzzled at this policy move and from individuals who support the lease. Indeed a mark of this debate is that it has surfaced sharp views and ones that are difficult if not impossible to reconcile.

The Port of Darwin lease highlights an urgent need to review how Australia takes account of its national security interests in making decisions about foreign investment. The Senate Committee Review—as well as the government’s separately stated intention to reassess aspects of the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB)—creates a timely opportunity to re-design these decision-making processes.

Courtesy of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), by Paul Barnes, Sam Bateman, Allan Behm, Phoebe Benich, Anthony Bergin, Patrick Cronin, Neil James, Peter Jennings, Geoff Wade, and Feng Zhang 

Read the full report on the strategic implications of the port lease at https://www.aspi.org.au/publications/chinese-investment-in-the-port-of-darwin-a-strategic-risk-for-australia.