Australian PM slams Chinese official’s tweet

SYDNEY: Australia’s prime minister angrily denounced a "repugnant", "outrageous" and "appalling" tweet from a top Chinese government spokesman on Monday and demanded Beijing formally apologise.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian sparked the outrage when he posted a staged image of a man dressed as an Australian soldier holding a bloody knife to an Afghan child’s throat.

Australian prosecutors are currently investigating 19 members of the country’s military in connection with alleged war crimes committed by special forces in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

Morrison called the tweet -- from an official Chinese government account -- an "outrageous and disgusting slur" against the Australian armed forces and called on Twitter to take it down.

"It is utterly outrageous and it cannot be justified on any basis whatsoever. The Chinese government should be totally ashamed of this post," Morrison said of the tweet. "It diminishes them in the world’s eyes."