PM visits Xi with eyes wide open

Managing China’s expectations will be one of the challenges of Anthony Albanese’s trip to China, which starts on Saturday. In Monday’s paper, Will Glasgow anticipates that Chinese President Xi Jinping will press the Prime Minister to support China’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership for free trade. Mr Xi will also want Australia to loosen restrictions on Chinese investment. And hard on the heels of Mr Albanese’s successful visit to the White House, where much of the focus was on the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine agreement and critical minerals, Mr Xi will want him to dilute Australia’s security co-ordination with the US in the Indo-Pacific region. That would be out of the question.

In his discussions with the Chinese leader, Mr Albanese’s sensible, practical approach to the bilateral relationship – “co-operate where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest” – will be put to the test. It should stand him and the nation in good stead.

Amid unprecedented strategic competition between China and the US, Mr Albanese is determined to keep Australia’s lines of communication with China open. In an exclusive interview with chief political correspondent Geoff Chambers, Mr Albanese invoked the Cold War and Cuban missile crisis to support his view that open, constructive ­dialogue with China will “build understanding” and avoid “misadventure”.

Mr Albanese’s trip, on which he will meet Premier Li Qiang as well as Mr Xi in Beijing and attend the China International Import Expo in Shanghai, will carry extra significance because it will be the first by an Australian prime minister to the country since Malcolm Turnbull in 2016. It takes place in a different strategic and economic climate to that of seven years ago. China’s aggressive expansionism in the South China Sea has lifted strategic tensions in the region to their highest levels since the end of World War II. The Covid-19 pandemic, which originated in Wuhan, has been and gone, destroying millions of lives, devastating communities and wreaking economic and social havoc across the world. And Australia has weathered China’s coercive trade restrictions on key exports, including tariffs imposed on our wine of more than 200 per cent and harsh measures against barley, lobsters, wood and much else. These were imposed in response to Scott Morrison’s entirely reasonable call for a thorough inquiry into the origins of Covid. The Albanese government has worked steadily to have the barriers dismantled, which is in China’s interests as well as Australia’s. As Mr Albanese and Mr Xi commemorate the 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s historic visit that led to an upsurge in trade, it is vital to grasp that China’s aim will be to further its own strategic interests.