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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

It’s been a long time coming, but Anthony Albanese finally met Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.

The friendly meeting is in stark contrast to our diplomatic relationship in recent years, where China wasn’t picking up the phone to Australia.

So how did it go? Why are both leaders so keen to restore ties? And can the relationship be repaired without compromise?

Today, chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Karen Middleton, on Anthony Albanese’s four days in China.

It’s Thursday, November 9th.

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Audio excerpt – News Host (9News):

“Anthony Albanese is tonight in China, the first Australian Prime Minister to visit the country in seven years…”

ANGE:

Karen Anthony Albanese became the first Prime Minister in seven years to visit China and it was this four day trip. What's he been doing?

KAREN:

He went to Shanghai and then to Beijing, and in Shanghai his focus was an international import expo that Shanghai holds one of the biggest in the world. And there was something like 250 Australian companies being represented there. So it was a good opportunity to emphasise the quality of Australian goods, which have been, of course, subject to high tariffs in the last few years when the relationship went off the rails a little bit.

Audio excerpt – News Reporter (9News):

“This is Australia Alley at the world’s largest import show, and both here, and among Australian officials, there is a growing confidence that those final tariffs will be removed, perhaps before Christmas.”

KAREN:

Particularly going in, holding up rock lobster and emphasising how good the product is, which it's one of those products that still hasn't yet had the tariffs removed. But we have seen in the lead up to this visit the indication from China that it would remove the tariffs on wine and we are still waiting for that move on beef and on lobster. So they're expecting that that will take place.

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“We encourage positive relations. This is a market of 1.4 billion people.”

KAREN:

He was also looking to the tourism potential and the Australian Government was very much hoping that just the images alone of the President and the Prime Minister shaking hands and being friendly would send a message to Chinese businesses and to potential Chinese tourists that we were no longer on the outer and that people could come back to Australia because again, it's a massive market. So there was that element to it as well. A bit of fun. I think one of the Australian journalists Will Glasgow videoed the Prime Minister walking through the streets of Shanghai and his Matildas jersey with his Rabbitohs cap.

Audio excerpt – Will Glasgow:

“Look who it is! Prime Minister!”

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“Hey!”

Audio excerpt – Will Glasgow:

“Hey, how are you?”

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“How you going?”

Audio excerpt – Will Glasgow:

“Enjoying your trip?”

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“Yeah, very good.”

KAREN:

That video went on social media and went viral to the point where the Chinese Premier commented on it and said that people were saying that we have a handsome boy coming from Australia. So, Anthony Albanese, I'm sure was very pleased about that.

Audio excerpt – Li Qiang: (translation)

“It is a great pleasure for me to host…people were saying that we have a handsome boy coming from Australia.”

KAREN:

So the diplomatic relationship seems to be heading in the right direction as a result of this visit.

ANGE:

And Karen. Anthony Albanese met with Xi Jinping and Xi is a hugely significant figure in China. Some have called him the most powerful leader since Chairman Mao. What did he and the Prime Minister talk about?

Audio excerpt – David Speers (ABC):

“The Great Hall of the People is the heart of Communist China, a symbol of its power. This grand welcome for Anthony Albanese, a further demonstration Australia has been brought in from the cold…”

KAREN:

This meeting was held in the Great Hall of the People, which is an important building seat of government right next to Tiananmen Square. The way these meetings generally go is that there is a brief interaction between the two leaders with the television cameras and journalists present, and then they go into private talks. Now, we don't know exactly what was said in those private talks, but Mr. Albanese did talk a little bit about it afterwards. He understands the level of interest in Australia given the significance of this visit.

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

“Australia, along with other countries in the region, has an interest in continued stable growth in the Chinese economy, and its ongoing engagement in the world, and that a strong relationship between our two countries will be beneficial into the future.”

KAREN:

The bilateral meeting clearly focussed on a range of issues. Trade was very high up because the Chinese economy has been in trouble. So China wanted to take the opportunity of a change of government in Australia to reopen talks and try and get things back to a more functional level.

Audio excerpt – Xi Jinping (in Chinese): (Translation)

“A sound and stable China-Australia relationship serves the common interests of the two countries and the two peoples, which also meets the common expectations of countries in the regions.”

KAREN:

I think the language that President Xi used would indicate that those remaining tariff walls will be pulled down pretty soon. So Australia would come away from that meeting feeling happy about that. But the leaders also discussed issues that they don't agree on.

Mr. Albanese raised the issue of Dr. Yang Hengjun, the Chinese-Australian writer who remains in jail in China, whose health is deteriorating and his family wanted to emphasise before the Prime Minister arrived that that case needed to be highlighted directly to the Chinese President. Dr. Yang's family made public a letter that they wrote to Anthony Albanese before he left, and that letter suggested that Dr. Yang was at risk of being left to die for medical maltreatment.

Now, Anthony Albanese acknowledged that he did raise that issue with Xi Jinping. He would not go into detail about the conversation any more than that, but it's quite clear that that remains one of the key outstanding issues, along with matters of security and China's cyber behaviour that Australia will continue to be vigilant about.

ANGE:

And Karen, as Anthony Albanese leaves China, what's practically changed in the relationship and what have the two countries agreed to?

KAREN:

Well, we will see a restoration of the annual talks that used to occur between the Australian leader and the Chinese Premier. So that will start again from next year between Chinese Premier League Chan and Anthony Albanese. They've agreed to some changes to travel arrangements into visas. There's a new agreement that will see 3 to 5 year visas created, with both sides agreeing they'll work further on the details of that and they've reached some agreements on working together on climate change.

I was in China recently on a journalism exchange and that was something that was raised with us as a possibility, you know, emphasising that we could work together, the two countries on environmental matters and climate action…

So they're emphasising the things that the two countries have in common, particularly in an economic sense, but also more broadly. But there are still those differences, and I think they're both going in with realistic expectations. And the idea of this whole meeting was that there's at least dialogue from now on instead of this situation where they just don't speak to each other.

ANGE:

After the break - what does China want out of its meeting with Australia?

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ANGE:

Karen, Chinese leaders have seemed very keen this week to get the economic relationship back on track. Why is it that China has come around on the Australian economy?

KAREN:

Well, I think Ange, a lot of it has got to do with the fact that the Chinese economy has slowed and it's not growing at the rate that it was. And China recognises it's not sustainable to maintain this position with Australia. Australia is very close to the United States as it knows that that irritates China, but it's decided that it needs to step up engagement.

When I was in China recently on that journalist's exchange, which was very much led on the Chinese end by the All-China Journalists Association, and it's really important to say that that is an organisation that's linked to the Chinese Communist Party. So it's not independent and it's a different, very different structure than we would have here. So we were very conscious of that.

We went to a meeting at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, we had a conversation with some academics there. It was conducted in English and it was very clear there was a message being delivered. So again, not necessarily independent academics as we might expect they would be here in Australia. They were talking about the Chinese economy, some of the pressures in the economy. And it was interesting what they chose to emphasise and the lines that they had for us on a range of issues. They talked about labour force matters and I thought it was also interesting that, you know, they emphasised young people not wanting to go into the same line of work as their parents, preferring to make what they described as easy money, putting videos on TikTok. Well now that's something that a lot of countries have an issue with. With the rise of social media and the influence it's having on their young people.

So it sort of seemed that they were looking for issues which we might have in common and to emphasise those. But again, they are very exercised by the United States. They made that point very strongly, particularly the US’s attitude to China and what they described as coercion in terms of its trade relationship.

I went to the American Embassy here in Canberra to ask them about that and they certainly dispute absolutely and they certainly reject the word coercion and any suggestion this is part of some US policy. So it's a fine line. They want the market in China to grow, but they don't want it to be the only place where businesses are focussed.

ANGE:

And Karen, what was the Chinese side of this meeting hoping to get out of these talks, aside from, you know, improving the communication and, and relationship between the two countries?

KAREN:

Well, China is very keen to be accepted into a regional trade grouping known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or a bit of a tongue twister, even in short, CPTPP. Now, that is a trade bloc that involves a range of countries around the region, including Australia, which it sees as having a benefit to trade and its economy more broadly. And it was seeking Australia's support for that ascension.

The Australian side is bit reluctant to give full support to that just now and he's emphasising that there are entry benchmarks that China would have to meet, including on trade behaviours. And that is a way of pointing out that what China has done to Australian goods in recent years was against the rules of international trade and so that there would be an expectation that it would have to uphold certain standards.

Interestingly, when we spoke to those academics when I was there recently, they also emphasised that Australia could perhaps be a go between in a political sense. Sort of somehow mediating between the United States and even Europe and China. I don't think that's an idea that necessarily has great support in Australia either.

And also the United States has its own access to China. When we saw the Prime Minister at the White House in Washington recently, and just as he was leaving, effectively the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, was going in. So there's no shortage of dialogue options for the United States and China. They probably don't need a messenger necessarily, but maybe they could. The Chinese side gets to practise some of its messages on Australia before they get delivered directly to the United States. I'm not sure that it would go any further than that.

ANGE:

And so finally, Karen, this relationship is in a new chapter now, but it puts Anthony Albanese on a kind of tightrope between maintaining this open communication, these positive messages about the economy and the differences we have on certain issues. Given how quickly disagreements have spiralled in the past between Australia and China, how well do you think both sides are going to be able to maintain what we've seen this week?

KAREN:

Well, it is a tricky path to walk because Australia wants to re-engage with China to the extent that our economies are functioning together and that the two countries are looking for the things they can work on together.

But it hasn't changed its security settings and it hasn't changed its concern about human rights matters and the Chinese side hasn't changed its posture on regional security and on cyber issues as far as we can tell either. So it's not a full meeting of minds.

Certainly there are Australian organisations and in fact the US Government are pressing Anthony Albanese very strongly to make sure that he held the line on those things and didn't give too much to the Chinese or give any indication that those sorts of things would be changing. I think President Biden in the US said to the Prime Minister, you know, trust but verify.

The Prime Minister has to maintain that position while trying to find areas in which the two countries can cooperate. His line, as we've heard so often repeated recently, is we will cooperate where we can and disagree where we must. So Anthony Albanese makes the point that the objective from Australia's side is to put some guardrails is the word he uses around the relationship so that it doesn't get off track and that there aren't misunderstandings and miscalculations or any surprises, whether that be on trade or on security or anything else.

ANGE:

Karen, thanks so much for your time today.

KAREN:

Thanks Ange.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

The Red Cross says a humanitarian convoy providing medical aid to Gaza hospitals has come under fire.

In a statement, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces were to blame for the attack. So far, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the attack.

AND

Optus customers were unable to call 000 during yesterday’s nationwide network outage, which affected millions of customers of Australia’s second largest telco.

The outage impacted communication for emergency services, banks, and public transport. In Victoria, 500 train services were cancelled.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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