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Australian foreign minister to visit China in bid to thaw ties with Beijing
- Australia’s Penny Wong will meet Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Wednesday for strategic dialogue last held in 2018
- The trip comes after years of strained bilateral relations caused by disputes over trade, human rights and national security
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Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong will visit China this week for strategic talks in an effort to thaw ties.
On Monday, the Australian government announced that Wong would arrive in Beijing on Tuesday. She will meet her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Wednesday for the Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, which was last held in 2018.
The Australian statement said the meeting would coincide with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Australia, signalling a thaw following years of strained ties caused by trade, human rights and national security disputes.
“Australia seeks a stable relationship with China; we will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest,” the joint statement signed by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
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Last month, Albanese met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit – the first face-to-face talks between the countries’ leaders since trade disputes started in 2020.
Both leaders expressed willingness to stabilise relations, with Xi calling for China-Australia ties to be “cherished”. However, no further details about efforts to resolve trade disputes have been revealed since the leaders met in November.
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Bilateral ties took a downturn in early 2020, when Beijing imposed around A$20 billion (US$13.3 billion) worth of sanctions on a wide range of imports from Australia, including coal, barley, wine, beef and seafood. Most of those restrictions, which came after Canberra called for an international inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, remain in place.
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