Hawkish intelligence chiefs who run Australia’s foreign policy are obsessed with Chinese interference and influence, and dismissing them is necessary to finally improve relations with Beijing, a retired prime minister urged.

“When the security agencies are running foreign policy, the nutters are in charge,” Paul Keating told the ABC. The politician, who served as prime minister back in the 1990s, has singled out the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and said secret services “lost their strategic bearings.”

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Keating, who has long advocated better ties with China, said people in charge of Australia’s intelligence services had “gone berko” over the perceived Chinese threat, adding the solution could be as simple as that. “You'd clean them out. You'd clean them out,” he reiterated.

Australia’s relations with China are somewhat strained today as both countries locked horns over a number of issues. Most recently, Australia banned Huawei, China’s leading tech giant, from its own 5G network development, as did the US, New Zealand and Japan.

In response, China’s biggest port of Dalian introduced caps on Australian coal imports. Other port facilities across the country extended clearing times for coal shipments from Australia to at least 40 days.

Trade tensions aside, there were reports that ASIO had been targeting the Australian Chinese community. The publications came on the back of another row involving billionaire and political donor Huang Xiangmo, who was stripped of his Australian permanent residency permit while he was overseas.

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