China: Tanks for the wine

Beijing wants closer defence links, dangles new trade deal

China says it would like to see joint military operations with Australia resume, saying defence co-operation is crucial to “real trust”, as the two countries move beyond repairing bilateral relations and look to “consolidate and develop”.

China’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian spoke for more than two hours to laud the inroads made to the bilateral relationship, warn against changes to Canberra’s position on Taiwan and voice his hopes for how to further strengthen relations.

The Albanese Government, which says it works with China “where we can, and disagrees where we must”, has had to walk a line between improving trade ties with Beijing amid a backdrop of China’s role in escalating strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.

Mr Xiao said Australia and China were “partners, not rivals”.

“To be honest, now the defence relationship between the two countries is an area where we really need to promote inputs and work harder,” he said.

“This is an area that is so important to the mutual trust and confidence between two countries and two people. You have trust and friendship in many areas, but you do not have trust in defence – that’s not real trust.

“I’d like to see more interactions and engagement returned to defence people. We used to have in the past decades, mutual visits, joint military exercises, those kinds of things … these need to pick up again and resume again to help promote to re-establish mutual trust and confidence.

“We will look at that and make some progress.”

Pressed on an incident last year in which Australian naval divers were injured by sonar pulses from a Chinese warship, the ambassador defended the Chinese navy and insinuated Australia had not told the whole story.

He said sonar from Chinese ships would have likely caused “immediate fatalities”, suggesting a “third party” ship, namely one belonging to Japan, was instead to blame.

Mr Xiao was asked when Australia could expect China to repeal the last of the tariffs on wine and lobster and Mr Xiao said he anticipated an update “in the coming months”.

At his own press conference yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he hoped Australian wine could “very soon” flow into China.

“We want to make sure that that (Chinese wine) market is reopened up, that the tariffs are reduced,” he said. “We had discussions very directly with China about that.”

Mr Albanese also maintained Australia had its “settings right” when it came to Taiwan, after the election on the weekend that awarded power to pro-independence Lai Ching-te.

“We congratulate the new leadership, the transition that has occurred through a democratic process, and we respect democratic processes,” Mr Albanese said.