SYDNEY: Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese flies to China on Saturday (Nov 4) for a landmark visit, a sign that icy relations have thawed with the trading giant and strategic rival.
His four-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai is the first by an Australian leader in seven years and is widely seen as recognition that relations are on a surer footing after a diplomatic breakdown that hit billions of dollars in trade.
Since its election in May last year, Albanese’s government has pursued a twin-track China strategy – seeking friendlier ties with his country’s biggest trading partner while countering Beijing’s growing clout in the Pacific.
Three years ago, China and Australia were at loggerheads.
China slapped punitive tariffs on a range of Australian commodities in 2020, angered by the previous conservative government’s barring of tech giant Huawei from 5G contracts and its call for a probe into the origins of COVID-19.
But with a change in tone under Australia’s new government, most of those barriers have since been lifted.
“China-Australia relations are now at a critical juncture of setting off and sailing off again,” China’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian wrote in an opinion piece ahead of the four-day trip.
The ambassador hailed the return of Australian coal, timber and barley exports to the Chinese market through “the relentless efforts of both sides”.
China has signalled it will also remove a tariff wall it imposed on wine, one of the few products still blocked, after a five-month review.
Despite the easier diplomatic and trade relations, Albanese has made clear that the countries are not strategically aligned.
“We are clear-eyed about this. We are two nations with very different histories, values and political systems,” he said during a visit to Washington last month.
The prime minister warned that China does not see itself as a power in favour of the “status quo”.
“It seeks a region that is much more accommodating of its values of interests,” he said.
Source: CNA
