Defence Minister Peter Dutton has ruled out Australia entertaining China's highly-publicised 14-point dossier requesting concessions from Canberra. Beijing has repeatedly stressed Canberra must be the one to act to improve battered Sino-Australian relations, and last year issued to Australian media a list of grievances the Morrison government must amend if relations were to improve. But the Australian government has firmly rejected such requests, insisting Australia will never jeopardise its sovereignty. On Tuesday, Mr Dutton, in the midst of a personal war-of-words with China, ruled out any possibility Australia would seek to appease Beijing.
"The Chinese government has delivered to Australia a list of 14 requirements for us to meet before that relationship is normalised including giving up essentially freedom of speech, and many of our democratic rights which we will never do as a sovereign nation," he told ABC's 7.30.
