A Chinese company that owns a 99-year lease on Darwin port has warned that its treatment at the hands of the Australian government risks scaring away investors from other countries.

Landbridge, a Shandong-based company founded by billionaire Ye Cheng, was informed last month of a security review of its Northern Territory operations, which it bought in 2015 for A$506m (US$380m). The development followed a sharp deterioration in relations between Canberra and Beijing and a collapse in investment by Chinese companies in Australia since 2016, when inflows peaked at A$16.5bn.

“My problem as a foreign investor is that the government approved us, we went through a very painful [review] process and for five years no one’s ever come up with anything concrete as to what is the problem,” Mike Hughes, Landbridge Australia managing director, told the Financial Times.