SYDNEY, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Australia was committed to returning a key northern port leased for 99 years to a Chinese company to Australian ownership, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday after Beijing's envoy to Canberra warned of trade reprisals.
The Northern Territory government sold Darwin Port to Chinese company Landbridge for A$506 million in 2015, a move criticised by the United States.
The awarding of the contract came just a few years after the United States posted the first of a rotating group of U.S. Marines in Darwin. The U.S. and Australia are expanding air bases in Australia's north to host U.S. bombers.
Speaking in East Timor on an official visit on Wednesday, Albanese said his government had made it clear it wanted the port returned to Australian ownership.
"We are committed to making sure that that port goes back into Australian hands because that is in our national interest," he said.
The port's owner, Landbridge Australia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said in November the port was in a strong financial position.
China's ambassador in Canberra, Xiao Qian, told reporters at an annual press briefing on Wednesday that Beijing would "take measures to protect the Chinese company's interests" if a sale of the port were forced.
"Should Landbridge be forced to leave that port, I think it might also affect the substantive investment, cooperation and trade between Chinese companies and that part of Australia," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Xiao as saying.
It is not the first time Xiao has criticised Albanese's election pledge last year to return the strategically located northern port to local ownership.
"China would like to reiterate that the relevant Chinese enterprise obtained the lease for the Port of Darwin through market means," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a regular news conference in Beijing.
"Their legitimate rights and interests should be fully protected," he added.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
