Despite their political conflict, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called Saturday for” rack variations” with Australia as he forged a four-day tour dangling the guarantee of increased trade.
Li, the second-powerfull person in China after Xi Jinping, made his first political visit to the resource-rich globe in Adelaide.
During a political gap with the previous conservative government, China has steadily lifted swinging trade sanctions imposed in 2020 on Australian wines, timber, barley, and beef exports. Taxes on stone crustaceans remain.
The measures cost Australian exporters an estimated Aus$ 20 billion ($ 13 billion ) a year.
Since the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s authorities took office in 2022 and adopted a softer political stance toward Beijing, economic relations between the two nations have improved.
” Joint value, seeking common earth while shelving differences and socially beneficial participation” were crucial to growing China- Australia relations, Li said in a written arrival statement.
The people of both nations will treasure a more mature, secure, and productive comprehensive strategic collaboration.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, additional government authorities, photographers, and TV reporters welcomed the elite to the airport’s road in Adelaide as they waved at the door.
Li is the highest-ranking Chinese official to travel to either region since 2017 flying in from a likewise trade-focused visit to New Zealand.
The top will visit a South American wine producer, test in on two Chinese-loaned giant pandas in Adelaide Zoo, meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a state lunch in Canberra, and then go to a lithium mine in Western Australia for a lithium mine.
The Chinese premier’s visit “reflects the improving tone”, said Ryan Neelam, director of the foreign policy programme at Sydney- based think tank the Lowy Institute.
He claimed that the political and security differences between them have now overshadowed the relationship’s focus on the economic opportunities that exist now.
” But at the same time, those differences have n’t gone away”.
– Wine and pandas-
Australia has strengthened its military ties with the United States as it attempts to parry Beijing’s growing diplomatic and military influence on island states scattered throughout the Pacific region.
China views the AUKUS security pact between Washington, London, and Canberra as a divisive measure that raises the risk of nuclear proliferation. It would provide Australia with nuclear-powered but conventionally armed submarines.
Australia’s most recent accusation of “unsafe and unprofessional conduct” was the most recent sign of military tensions after one of its warplanes allegedly fired flares over the Yellow Sea in the direct path of a naval helicopter last month.
Albanese has promised to tell Li the behaviour was “inappropriate”.
Canberra also expressed “outrage” when a Beijing court earlier this year sentenced dissident writer Yang Jun to a suspended death sentence.
However, Neelam said that such disagreements are likely to be aired behind closed doors.
Instead, Li sets a friendlier tone on the first full day of his trip Sunday– visiting the famed Barossa winemaking region in Adelaide, hometown of Australia’s foreign minister, who is credited with helping stabilise relations with Beijing.
China’s tariffs had effectively blocked premium Australian wine exports, worth an estimated Aus$ 1 billion a year, until just three months ago.
However, first, Li will visit Adelaide Zoo, where Wang Wang and Fu Ni, two giant pandas, have been on loan from China since 2009, have been.
Although they did n’t produce any children during their time together, there are high hopes that the pair, who are the tools of China’s so-called panda diplomacy, will be permitted to stay.
