Australia Grapples With Foreign Land Sales

 SYDNEY — In Australia, conservative politicians want to tighten¹ the controls on foreign investors² buying farms and businesses. The calls for more scrutiny³ on sales to foreigners come as a Chinese property conglomerate⁴ bids for a 15,000 hectare farming project in the Australian outback.

The Foreign Investment Review Board makes recommendations to the government on whether deals should be accepted or rejected based on what it considers to be the national interest.

Opposition⁵ leader Tony Abbott says he does not want to restrict foreign investment, but believes that sales should be more thoroughly⁶ examined.

"The important thing is getting foreign investment under the right conditions and the right conditions are when it is unambiguously in Australia's national interest and this is about persuading the public that the foreign investment we get is serving Australia's purposes as well as the purposes of the foreign investor," Abbott said.

Chinese plans

The Shanghai Zhongfu Group is bidding for a huge farming enterprise in Western Australia state, with plans to develop agriculture business in the sub-tropical region, but is facing opposition from politicians increasingly concerned about foreign investment in Australian farms.

"I don't come at this from a perspective that foreign investment is bad," said John Forrest, a conservative lawmaker in Canberra's federal parliament, who believes that foreign investors should face greater scrutiny. "But we want to know that they're going to employ Australians, they're not going to send in a rush of their own nationalities and they're going to contribute to the local economy. These are important national interest questions and I want to see criteria⁷ set down that they're declared [to the conditions]."

China, the world's most populous⁸ country, does not grow enough food to feed its 1.4 billion people. It has expressed an interest in some of Australia’s most important agricultural assets.

Alan Moran, the director of the deregulation unit at the Institute of Public Affairs, a non-profit Melbourne-based think-tank, says Chinese interest in Australian farms will cause some alarm.

"People [in Australia] are quite comfortable with Americans and British and New Zealanders and all that sort of stuff, but China is the new guy on the block and, if anything, the strategic alliances we have probably, I don't say they’re targeted at China, but China is somewhat different and seemed to be, if anything, a future antagonist⁹ to Australiam" said Moran.

Ambivalence¹⁰

Last year, Australia and China set up a joint¹¹ study on how to attract Chinese investment into under-developed regions across the Australian continent. A deal is expected to be finalized¹² later this year.

But Mark McGovern, a senior lecturer with the Queensland University of Technology Business School, says that food security in Australia could be undermined by sales of key assets to foreigners.

"I think the idea of the nation being able to feed itself is central to most national identities around the world," he said. "It is central to the Treaty of Rome in Europe, the U.S. obviously adheres to it and the Chinese are concerned about feeding their own population and Australians should be too.  So we need to say how well are we feeding our people and how much can we export and look at it from that more balanced point of view rather than simply saying every item sold offshore¹³ must be good."

However, the government says that, far from "buying up the family farm", the amount of foreign-owned agricultural land in Australia had grown only marginally since the 1980s.

The most recent figures show that about 11 percent of Australian agricultural land was owned by foreign investors at the end of 2010.

Overblown concerns?

Jason Li, a business adviser¹⁴ who specializes in partnerships¹⁵ between Chinese and Australian companies, says concerns in Australia about Chinese investors are overblown.

"There is so much noise about Chinese investment in Australia, but when you line up China in the list of countries, the total amount of Chinese foreign investment in Australia, last year, I think it is less than one percent of the total volume," said Li. "From the U.K. and the U.S. it is something like 40-something percent. So we are really talking about a very small figure at the moment."

The Australian government is keen to encourage more foreign investment in its under-developed north, as it looks to open the region for farming to tap booming demand for food from Asia, especially China.

1 tighten   

v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧

参考例句：

• Turn the screw to the right to tighten it.向右转动螺钉把它拧紧。
• Some countries tighten monetary policy to avoid inflation.一些国家实行紧缩银根的货币政策，以避免通货膨胀。

2 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

3 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。

4 conglomerate   

n.综合商社，多元化集团公司

参考例句：

• The firm has been taken over by an American conglomerate.该公司已被美国一企业集团接管。
• An American conglomerate holds a major share in the company.一家美国的大联合企业持有该公司的大部分股份。

5 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

6 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

7 criteria   

n.标准

参考例句：

• The main criterion is value for money.主要的标准是钱要用得划算。
• There are strict criteria for inclusion in the competition.参赛的标准很严格。

8 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

9 antagonist   

n.敌人，对抗者，对手

参考例句：

• His antagonist in the debate was quicker than he.在辩论中他的对手比他反应快。
• The thing is to know the nature of your antagonist.要紧的是要了解你的对手的特性。

10 ambivalence   

n.矛盾心理

参考例句：

• She viewed her daughter's education with ambivalence.她看待女儿的教育问题态度矛盾。
• She felt a certain ambivalence towards him.她对他的态度有些矛盾。

11 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

12 finalized   

vt.完成（finalize的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The draft of this article has been finalized [done]. 这篇文章已经定稿。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The draft was revised several times before it was finalized. 稿子几经删改才定下来。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

13 offshore   

adj.海面的，吹向海面的；adv.向海面

参考例句：

• A big program of oil exploration has begun offshore.一个大规模的石油勘探计划正在近海展开。
• A gentle current carried them slowly offshore.和缓的潮流慢慢地把他们带离了海岸。

14 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

15 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句