Image Source: Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi (R) meeting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Tuesday. Image: David Gray / AFP
This week, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visited Australia for the first time in seven years, since 2017. Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang – who unexpectedly passed away in November 2023 in Shanghai aged 68- visited for 5 days in 2017 with the then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnball.
Bilateral ties have been improving since Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited China in November 2023.
Australia and China, its largest trading partner, are rebuilding ties after a period of strained relations which hit a low in 2020 after Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origin of COVID-19, and Beijing responded with trade blocks. (Reuters)
China imposed tariffs of up to 200% on Australian wine at the height of the diplomatic dispute in 2020, alongside measures affecting a range of products including barley, red meat, seafood and coal.
Australia has since been in the grips of a wine glut with an oversupply equivalent to more than 2.8bn bottles of wine after vintage last year. (The Guardian)
The meeting between Wang Yi and former prime minister Paul Keating also garnered significant media attention. Keating has been a vocal advocate of the importance of maintaining China relations. China’s request for Wang to also meet Keating stirred domestic political controversy, because of Keating’s past attacks on Australia’s intelligence agencies and his opposition to the AUKUS defence agreement, through which the U.S. and Britain will assist Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. (Reuters)
“Australia is an ally of the United States, a partner of China and a sovereign country. The Australian side is welcome to formulate policies independently and autonomously in its own fundamental interests,” Wang said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement.
“The foreign minister was very positive about putting bilateral difficulties behind us as he was encouraged by the government’s efforts in restoring appropriate equilibrium between our two countries,” Keating said.
In the coming months, the spotlight will be on Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Canberra.
Feng Chongyi, associate professor for China Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, gave further insight into Wang’s underlying strategy.
“Business and trade sectors are the core influential groups pushing Canberra to stabilise its relations with China,” Feng told the ABC.
“Looking ahead, the green light for Australian wine, lobster, and beef exports to China may soon signal a thaw in previously frosty trade relations,” Feng said.
“These bans are no longer of interest to China, so we’ll see them lifted soon — as early as ahead of the premier’s visit.
Wang’s visit, therefore, is not merely a diplomatic courtesy call but a strategic move to reposition China as a key economic partner for Australia at a critical juncture.
The federal government has signaled it’s determined to maintain dialogue with top leaders in Beijing despite tensions between the two countries flaring once again in the wake of the suspended death sentence handed to Australian academic Yang Hengjun. (ABC)
This week March 18 2024 the national DRiNK Awards at Shanghai Centre Theatre was the biggest night of the year for China’s drinks industry – with Penfold Wines Australia holding their court with a lavish wine tasting booth in anticipation of China wine tariffs being lifted. Penfolds, the flagship Australian wine brand owned by Treasury Wine Estates, has finally unveiled its much anticipated made-in-China wine in 2022.
