Australia seeks to mend China ties with new foundation, envoy

SYDNEY: Australia announced a diplomatic boost to ‘turbo-charge’ its China relations yesterday as it seeks to mend ties damaged by foreign interference concerns and a 5G bar on Huawei.

Canberra unveiled plans for a new foundation to supercede the Australia-China Council, its long-time primary platform for relations with its largest trading partner.

The government also announced that career diplomat Graham Fletcher, a China expert and Mandarin speaker, would replace Jan Adams as Australia’s ambassador in Beijing.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the new National Foundation for Australia-China Relations would receive Aus$44 (US$31) million over five years, significantly broadening the remit of its predecessor.

She said the more than 40year-old Council had remained “static even as China has transformed and our bilateral ties have dramatically expanded in breadth and complexity.”

She said the “substantially increased” funding would allow the new body to “move beyond the Council’s current focus on education, culture and the arts, to also promote Australian excellence in areas such as agriculture, infrastructure, health and ageing and the environment and energy.”

“It will harness efforts of the private sector, peak bodies, NGOs, cultural organisations, state and federal agencies and the Chinese-Australian community to turbo-charge our national effort in engaging China.”

While noting that the two countries ‘share common objectives’ in many areas, Payne said there were “different perspectives on some important issues” that would be a focus of the new foundation.