China-Australia trade tensions on Penny Wong’s Beijing agenda – but don’t expect a breakthrough

Wong, the first Australian foreign minister to visit China since 2018, will meet Wang Yi on 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties

Detention of Australians Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun on spying charges expected to come up in discussion, with analysts predicting tangible results

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On December 20, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong boards a plane to China to meet with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. Photo: AAP

Published: 8:30pm, 20 Dec 2022Updated: 11:16am, 23 Dec 2022

A strategic meeting between the foreign ministers of China and Australia may put ties back on track as both seek to manage trade tensions, but their security distrust will not disappear, according to analysts.

Australia’s Penny Wong was expected to land in Beijing on Tuesday and become the first foreign minister from her country to visit China since 2018, in an effort to stabilise ties and push for the lifting of trade sanctions imposed since 2020.

She is expected to meet her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, for the Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue on Wednesday, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations.

Wong and Wang met in July on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Indonesia, before the leaders of the two countries – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – sat down for the first time during the actual summit last month.

Xi and Albanese affirmed their willingness to stabilise ties between the “highly complementary” Asia-Pacific economies but there were no signs from the meeting of trade tensions easing.