This week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard arrives in Beijing for a visit that includes a meeting with President Hu Jintao next Tuesday. Top of the list for discussion will be the results of a study jointly prepared by Chinese and Australian officials, which is likely to pave the way for the start of talks on a free-trade agreement.
But, no doubt, Mr Howard will want to lobby the Chinese to ensure that Australia gets a berth at the first East Asia Summit to be held in Kuala Lumpur later this year. And then there is the issue of rising tensions between China and Japan - a potentially difficult issue for Australia, given its 50 years of strong economic and strategic ties with Tokyo.
Australia's desire to move quickly to cement a free-trade deal with Beijing is built on the idea that China will be bombarded with bilateral trade requests over the next decade and it is in Australia's interests to try to be at the head of the queue.
The study that Mr Hu and Mr Howard will utilise as a basis for pushing talks forward is said to indicate that a free-trade pact would boost the Australian economy by A$3 billion ($18 billion).
As the Australian Financial Review noted last week, for the Chinese, such a deal is a 'form of treaty-level insurance of its long-term future supply of Australian resources to feed its hungry economic machine'. Australia is the biggest exporter of coal and aluminium in the world, the second-largest supplier of nickel and iron ore, and the third-largest producer of gold.
There are difficult political issues for both sides. From the Chinese perspective, Australia's strong agricultural export base may make the farming sector nervous. And Australian manufacturers, particularly of textiles, are a powerful lobby group that perceives a significant erosion of market share from Chinese imports.
And where does Australia fit within the nascent East Asian grouping of the 10 Asean countries plus China, Japan and South Korea? This group is meeting in Kuala Lumpur late this year, and a meeting in the Philippines this week will determine who gets invited to this historic conference.