Li Qiang, the first Chinese Premier to visit Australia since 2017, says Sino-Australian relations are back on the “right track”. Yet the tensions in bilateral ties broke through the diplomatic pomp and ceremony yesterday when Chinese embassy officials – forgetting they are guests in a free country – attempted to block photographers from snapping Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who was wrongfully detained in China for three years, in the same shot as Mr Li.

Similarly, the backdrop for yesterday’s announcement of enhanced “military to military communication” – the details of which we are yet to see – was the November 2023 sonar and May 2024 helicopter flare incidents involving the Chinese military that endangered Australian defence force personnel.