Anthony Albanese’s coming visit to China is one of the more delicate diplomatic forays of his prime ministership and is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of then-PM Gough Whitlam’s first visit to China in 1973.Anthony Albanese’s coming visit to China is one of the more delicate diplomatic forays of his prime ministership and is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of then-PM Gough Whitlam’s first visit to China in 1973.
The phrase ‘Manchurian candidate’ refers to a politician being used as a puppet by an enemy power. Australia’s domestic spy chief, Mike Burgess, declares that the weaponisation of national security is ‘not helpful to us’.July 2022Wong says Canberra and Beijing have taken the ‘first step towards stabilising the relationship’ after the first face-to-face meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers since 2019.
As a prelude to the trip, Australia has recently secured the release of the journalist Cheng Lei, and China has stepped back from punitive trade sanctions imposed at the height of the war of words with Canberra which began when the Chinese telco Huawei was barred from Australia’s 5G rollout in 2018 and intensified dramatically after Scott Morrison called for an independent inquiry into the origins of Covid-19 in 2020.
Albanese said on Thursday that Australia wanted to look for areas “where we can cooperate when we can, and disagree where we must”. The prime minister said Australia’s diplomatic strategy during the current re-engagement with Australia’s most significant trading partner was “patient, calibrated and deliberate”.
Australia’s trade minister, Don Farrell, said after his meeting with China’s commerce minister, Wang Wentao, in May: “I reiterated that any economy that sought to accede to the CPTPP must have a demonstrated track record of complying with trade agreements. I also indicated that Australia would work with the CPTPP membership to consider all accession applications on a consensus basis.”