Twitter today rejected Australia's request to delete the tweet of one of the Beijing officials involved in the Australian military. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian had sparked outrage in Canberra yesterday over revealing a picture of a man dressed as an Australian soldier holding a knife to the neck of an Afghan child.
In addition, the post allegedly appeared a few days after Australian prosecutors launched an investigation into 19 members of the country's military on war crimes committed in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
According to Twitter, they have branded the tweet as one of the sensitive issues but comments on topical political issues or foreign policy sabre-rattling by government official accounts generally do not violate the rules.
However, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the tweet as disgusting and urged Twitter to delete it and China needed to apologize.
He added that Beijing should have been ashamed and not arbitrarily insulted the Australian armed forces. Meanwhile, Twitter has been banned for most citizens in China and Beijing for decades for allegedly committing widespread human rights violations.
Following that, several Australian allies also expressed concern over the tweet, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Based on the statement submitted, he claimed that the picture used was not true and not even the original picture.
In addition, the French foreign ministry said that China's actions were not in line with expected diplomatic standards.
In fact, the picture is also rumored to insult all countries whose military forces have been involved in Afghanistan for 20 years.
As such, Kabul has submitted that they will work with Canberra to investigate allegations of Australian military misconduct, as well as both Australia and China need to play a role in defending international awareness of peace and development in Afghanistan.
However, the Chinese embassy in Canberra claimed that Australia was overreacting to the tweet.
