Singapore: China has denounced Australia’s involvement in “camp confrontation” after US President Trump declared the AUKUS submarine deal was moving ahead at full steam , but has remained muted in its public response to Prime Minister Albanese’s rare earths deal with the US.

In his first bilateral meeting with Trump this week, Albanese cinched a $13 billion critical minerals mining and processing deal designed to mitigate China’s stranglehold on the rare earths supply chain. Australia has wielded the deal as a key bargaining tool in ongoing trade negotiations with the US.

Trade tensions between the US and China have flared again after Beijing announced sweeping new curbs on its own rare earths exports this month, in an apparent response to the US’s move to add more Chinese companies t

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