In December 2013, Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, sat down for a meeting she knew would be difficult. She was scheduled to meet Wang Yi, China’s new foreign minister, on her first official visit to China.

Tensions were already running high. Bishop’s ministry had previously called in China’s ambassador in Canberra, Ma Zhaoxu, asking him to explain Beijing’s provocative decision to declare an air defence identification zone in the disputed East China Sea. Australia had sided with the United States and Japan by protesting the move, which required any aircraft traversing the zone to comply with identification procedures or face “defensive measures”.