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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison today apologized to China for a post on the Twitter social network released by a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“The Chinese government should be totally ashamed of this message. It belittles it in the eyes of the world,” Morrison said, referring to the image posted by the official on the social network censored in China.
Morrison stressed that the publication “is totally scandalous and cannot be justified,” and said he asked Twitter to “immediately” remove the message containing “a fake image”.
The controversial publication by Zhao Lijian, who was still on the social network after seven hours, is accompanied by a photograph of a soldier in military uniform and an Australian flag helmet holding a bloody knife around the neck of a barefoot child, whose image is blurry. , which clings to a white sheep.
The floor in which they both appear is covered with the Australian flag, which also covers several inert bodies, and the Afghan flag, which is made up of puzzle pieces.
The Chinese official wrote that he was “shocked by the killing of Afghan civilians and prisoners by Australian soldiers” and added: “We strongly condemn these acts and ask that he be held accountable.”
Zhao Lijian’s publication follows Australia’s admission on November 19 that his army killed 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners between 2005 and 2016 during its deployment to Afghanistan.
Australian army chief Rick Burr said Friday that 13 soldiers had been informed of his deportation, without specifying whether they were among the accused after investigating war crimes committed by the military.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Chinese state newspaper Global Times, defended the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also via Twitter.
“It is a famous comic that condemns the brutal death of 39 Afghan civilians by Australian special forces,” Hu said.
“Why is Morrison angry at the foreign ministry spokesman’s use of caricature? It’s ridiculous and embarrassing that he apologizes to China,” he replied.
Diplomatic relations between Canberra and Beijing have deteriorated significantly due to numerous statements by political leaders, trade tensions between the two nations and political measures promoted by Australia.
“There are certainly tensions between China and Australia, but this is not the way to address them,” Morrison said in his message.
Australia vetoed Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from granting concessions for its fifth-generation (5G) network in 2018 for security reasons and has lobbied the law to avoid foreign political interference, without directly referring to China.
On the trade front, where the Asian giant is Australia’s largest trading partner, Beijing has raised import duties on several Australian products.
The two countries also maintain deep ideological differences and disagree on issues such as human rights or militarization and free navigation in the disputed South China Sea.
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