Xi meeting a great step
Leaders look forward to repairing relationship
PRIME Minister Anthony Albanese was scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Indonesia on Tuesday in the first meeting between leaders of the two countries since 2016.
Mr Albanese on Monday said he was “looking forward” to a “constructive meeting” with Mr Xi while Beijing, in comments made hours before the meeting in Bali, said the “international community” wanted to see China improve its relationship with Australia.
In the final Chinese government comments before the two leaders met, China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing hoped Canberra would make “efforts … to rebuild trust” in the frayed relationship.
“Improving China-Australia relations is in the fundamental interest of both sides,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning late on Monday.
“It is also the expectation of the people of China and Australia and the international community.
“We hope the Australian side will follow the principles of mutual respect and seeking common ground while reserving differences, work with China in the same direction and endeavour to achieve mutual benefit.”
The meeting between Mr Xi and Mr Albanese comes a day after US President Joe Biden spoke for more than three hours with China’s leader. Each brought heavyweight entourages to their first in-person meeting since the American president was elected.
Some analysts have called the Monday meeting an “inflection point” in a relationship that had appeared to be spiralling towards conflict, although tensions remain over the two countries’ positions on Taiwan.
Canberra indicated that it would use Tuesday’s meeting to advocate for the release of Australians Cheng Lei and Dr Yang Hengjun from their Beijing prison cells.
Mr Albanese was also expected to call for an end to China’s blacklisting of Australian goods previously worth $20bn a year.
The Albanese government has tried to downplay the scope of any major breakthrough at the Bali talks, but it hopes the meeting will further stabilise the relationship with its biggest trading partner.
For months, Beijing has also sent signs to Canberra that it wants to improve relations with Australia, its dominant source of iron ore, and a major source of other strategic resources, such as LNG.
A diplomatic improvement would also give Beijing political cover to allow a resumption of Australian thermal and coking coal supplies, which have both been blacklisted since 2020 under Mr Xi’s instructions.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the meeting was in the interests of peace and prosperity, and stability and security in the region.
“I was with the Prime Minister yesterday in Indonesia, I know he’s looking forward to engaging with President Xi,” Dr Chalmers told ABC Radio on Tuesday. “...We believe that engagement is important.”