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The gathering on a late summer\u2019s day at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra early last year was not meant to be about diplomacy.<\/p>\n
Xiao Qian, the newly appointed Chinese ambassador to Australia, was hosting his first event as Beijing\u2019s emissary to honour a NSW senior constable who died while trying to rescue a Chinese student in the Blue Mountains.<\/p>\n
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to visit China and meet President Xi Jinping.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Illustration: Dionne Gain<\/cite><\/p>\n Between presenting the parents of Kelly Foster with a Great Wall Commemorative Medal in recognition of their daughter\u2019s courage, Xiao took the opportunity to send a message to the Australian government that it had not heard in more than two years.<\/p>\n \u201cChina is willing to work with Australia to meet each other halfway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n More than 18 months after Xiao was sent by Beijing to try to revive a relationship that had spiralled through trade strikes, diplomatic freezes and disputes over human rights and national security, Anthony Albanese will arrive in China on Saturday for the first official visit of an Australian prime minister in six years.<\/p>\n In between there has been a change in government in Canberra, the release of Australian journalist Cheng Lei from arbitrary detention and relief from $20 billion in trade strikes.<\/p>\n The Labor government has given ground too, most recently allowing Chinese company Landbridge to keep its lease over the Port of Darwin. It has also resisted imposing Magnitsky sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n In Beijing, Albanese will meet China\u2019s Premier Li Qiang and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People. It is the highest-level meeting that can be granted to an Australian prime minister, but while both sides are relieved to be on the way to halfway, they are not there yet.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a relationship that is the same as it was in 2016,\u201d said one senior official in Canberra, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters. \u201cIt is not a journey back to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the legwork leading up to Albanese\u2019s visit has already been completed. The winding back of trade sanctions on industries like wine and barley was needed to publicly lock in the visit, and so too was the release of Cheng Lei.<\/p>\n But five key issues will dominate the next steps: China\u2019s pitch to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, critical minerals, Xi\u2019s meeting with US President Joe Biden next week and the domestic political environments of both China and Australia.<\/p>\n The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, otherwise known as the CPTPP, is verbose and in need of a rebranding \u2013 but it is one of the world\u2019s largest trade agreements and Beijing wants in.<\/p>\n China, as the world\u2019s second-largest economy, sees it as its right to join the trade deal to open up markets across the Pacific. Others are not so keen. After years of economic coercion from China, Japan has made it clear it does not see a future for China in the deal.<\/p>\n Australia, after weathering $20 billion in trade strikes, has suddenly softened its tone. In October last year, Trade Minister Don Farrell said there was \u201cno prospect\u201d of China joining the deal. But last week the South China Morning Post <\/i>reported Canberra would \u201cnot oppose\u201d the trade pact bid.<\/p>\n \u201cThey will advocate for their own entry, and we will talk about the high standards required,\u201d said one senior Australian government official. Asked directly if there was a nuanced position of not supporting but not opposing, the official said did not go into any more details. \u201cOur position has already been articulated.\u201d<\/p>\n Importantly for Beijing, discussions about its own membership have dominated Taiwan\u2019s own bid to join the giant trade pact. The newfound stability in the relationship between Australia and China means it is unlikely that Canberra will now turn around and support Taipei\u2019s bid.<\/p>\n \u201cChina has two goals for the CPTPP,\u201d says Kevin Magee, a career diplomat, former Australian ambassador and representative in Taipei.<\/p>\n \u201cOne is to keep Taiwan out. The other one\u2019s to get themselves in. Those are equally important.\u201d<\/p>\n Albanese has repeatedly claimed the relationship between Australia and China is not transactional.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just don\u2019t like to say it is because then all sorts of trouble [comes] from the opposition and the media and elsewhere,\u201d says Magee. \u201cGenerally, a lot of things are just done on a quid pro quo and deniable basis. Both sides have wounds they can lick.\u201d<\/p>\n Very critical, it seems. In March, as the spirit of stabilisation was in full swing in Canberra and Beijing, Treasurer Jim Chalmers blocked China\u2019s Yuxiao Fund from increasing its investment in Australian rare-earth miner Northern Minerals. \u201cWe\u2019ll need to be more assertive about encouraging investment that clearly aligns with our national interest in the longer term,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The resources are used in everything from lithium batteries to high-end military equipment. Australia has some of the world\u2019s largest supplies of these minerals, but China dominates the production that transforms them into usable quantities.<\/p>\n As with Australia\u2019s exports of iron ore, that would usually be a complementary relationship, but Washington has made it clear to Canberra that it wants more critical minerals being produced in the United States and elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom Beijing\u2019s perspective, Australia\u2019s alignment with the United States signifies a departure from the complementary relationship in the critical minerals supply chain,\u201d said Marina Yue Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, in research published by the Lowy Institute.<\/p>\n Australian ambassador to the US Dr Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Washington DC last month.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Alex Ellinghausen<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cThe prevailing sentiment in Beijing is that Australia is, once again, being used by the United States as a \u2018pawn\u2019 in its strategic competition against China.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t be surprised to see a small but symbolic concession on critical minerals in Beijing.<\/p>\n Albanese\u2019s visit is important, but it is just a prelude to the meeting that will happen between Xi and Biden the following week in San Francisco.<\/p>\n The Australian government has resisted being tagged as a go-between for the two superpowers, but the timing is irresistible. Albanese will arrive in Beijing a week after being hosted by Biden at the White House for a state visit.<\/p>\n One ambassador to Washington, Lui Tuck Yew, of Singapore, who also previously served in Beijing, characterised the US-China relationship like this: \u201cmutual suspicion, intractable issues (and) an absence of strategic trust\u201d.<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, who completed a doctorate on Xi Jinping Thought at Oxford University, told the Council on Foreign Relations that he believed Xi wanted to change the relationship in \u201ca direction more accommodating of Chinese interests and values\u201d while the US had \u201cembarked on a conscious campaign of economic derisking from China\u201d \u2013 making their relationship more volatile.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to be realistic about these strategic underpinnings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Albanese\u2019s task will be to encourage more open communication lines, particularly between the country\u2019s two militaries, which have grown dangerously strained in the past year.<\/p>\n Xi has had a tumultuous few months by his own standards. He sacked his foreign minister in July after suggestions of an affair with a reporter, then his defence minister Li Shangfu in October amid a corruption probe.<\/p>\n On Thursday, he attended the memorial service for his former premier, Li Keqiang, who died at 68, only months after leaving office. The sudden death of the relatively liberal leader has triggered scenes of mourning across the country, some of it targeted at the more authoritarian rule of Xi.<\/p>\n Albanese\u2019s official visit to the Great Hall of the People, like Xi\u2019s meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Californian Governor Gavin Newsom last week, allows China to reset the narrative to project stability and prestige in a lightly unbalanced domestic political environment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be portrayed on [Chinese state media service] CCTV as being Australia reconciled with China coming to show its respects to a great power,\u201d says Magee.<\/p>\n Residents mourn for the late former Chinese premier Li Keqiang in Zhengzhou city.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n Talkback radio has a useful shorthand for travelling prime ministers. In 2007, there was \u201cKevin 747\u201d, and now there is \u201cAirbus Albo\u201d.<\/p>\n Usually, it inflicts minimal damage on leaders from a public that is aware that travelling is part of the job. But the failure of the Voice referendum and the soaring cost of living has put some domestic political pressure on Albanese after trips to Washington, then Beijing in the same week, with the Cook Islands and San Francisco soon to follow.<\/p>\n Australian officials have been keen to reframe part of China\u2019s trips to a domestic audience. Particularly on Sunday, when Albanese will spend a good chunk of the day speaking with Australian agriculture producers in Shanghai at the China International Import Expo.<\/p>\n They are also managing expectations about the trip overall. It is unlikely we will see Albanese walking along a People\u2019s Liberation Army line in Tiananmen Square, as other leaders have done, which would create challenging optics and provide fresh material for Coalition MPs who argue Labor is going soft on China.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a country is going to be a serious player in the region, you have to travel,\u201d said Magee. \u201cBecause otherwise you\u2019ll be ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n Get the best of Good Weekend delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Sign up for our newsletter.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nTrading times<\/h3>\n
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