Following in the footsteps of the first Australian leader to visit China, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Beijing’s Temple of Heaven on Monday, repeating a trip taken at the same time that connections were being created five decades earlier.
Albanese’s visit, the first by an Australian leader since 2016, aims to restore trade relations between the two countries following tensions in the previous years on matters ranging from security concerns to the source of COVID-19, which prompted Chinese bans on Australian goods, including wine, barley, and cattle.
On Monday, Albanese, who arrived on Saturday, was scheduled to have his second in-person meeting with President Xi Jinping in a year.
Albanese posed for a picture at the Temple of Heaven’s circular Echo Wall, where Gough Whitlam, Australia’s prime minister, had stood in 1973, a year after the two nations’ connections were formed. “A lot has changed since he visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. But one thing is certain: communication between our two nations is still vital,” Albanese wrote in a post on X, previously known as Twitter.
Australia and China established a commercial connection over many years, with China eventually becoming Australia’s largest trading partner through its purchases of Australian natural resources and food.
However, relations deteriorated when Australia accused China of interfering in its politics in 2017. Due to concerns over national security, Australia banned Huawei Technologies Co. (HWT.UL) hardware for its 5G network the following year.
Beijing became enraged and replied by imposing import restrictions on a range of Australian goods in response to an Australian request in 2020 for an international investigation into the source of the COVID epidemic, which surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
As ties worsened, China threatened a multibillion-dollar education industry by warning its students not to study in Australia, citing incidences involving racial acts.
“ENDORSING SIGNALS”
However, after taking office as prime minister in May of last year and meeting Xi in November during a G20 summit in Indonesia, Albanese moved to normalize relations. China quickly started to remove trade restrictions, removing barley tariffs in August and permitting coal imports in January. Beijing consented to evaluating the 218% dumping charges on Australian wine last month.
“I believe there are encouraging indicators,” Albanese informed the media. “We’ve already seen a number of the impediments to trade between our two nations removed and an uplift already, a substantial uplift, in the trade between our two nations in issues like barley already restarting.”
Australian imports into China from January to September were $116.9 billion, up 8.1% from the same period last year, according to Chinese customs statistics. Imports fell 12.7% to $142.1 billion in 2022.
However, challenges still exist. Australia is concerned about Beijing’s power projection among Pacific island states and Beijing’s security cooperation with the U.S. and Britain in the Indo-Pacific has increased China’s concerns about containment.
China has expressed outrage over Australia’s support of a U.N. verdict that rejected China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, stating that the matter is not of interest to it. According to Australia, the South China Sea significantly facilitates trade with South Korea and Japan.
“What I’ve said is that we need to cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest,” Albanese stated.
Comment Template