Lunch invitation leaves Albanese in a delicate position in rapidly changing global order
Xi Jinping has clearly decided Anthony Albanese is a world leader worth his time.
That is going to make some people in Australia very happy – and it is going to make another group in Australia, and in Washington, more than a little worried.
After their official meeting on Tuesday, the Chinese leader cleared his diary to have lunch with the visiting Australian Prime Minister. The PM’s fiancee Jodie Haydon was also invited for lunch (although Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan was not along).
It was the first time an Australian leader had eaten with Xi since Malcolm Turnbull did during a trip to China in 2016.
“I thank very much President Xi for the bilateral meeting and also (for) hosting a banquet lunch there in the Great Hall of the People, which is an honour which is bestowed on Australia,” the PM said at a press conference in Beijing after the meal.
It is an increasingly rare experience for visiting leaders to get so much time in the Chairman of Everything’s diary.
“Xi receives lots of guests but doesn’t invite many to lunch,” Richard McGregor, senior fellow at the Lowy Institute and Australia’s top expert on elite Chinese politics, told The Australian.
“He clearly sees value in investing in Albanese personally, especially as he would have been advised that he might be in charge of Australia for some years to come.”
After his election win, Albanese could be PM for the rest of Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. It is a period ripe with opportunity for Beijing.
No one should confuse Albanese’s lunch invitation, or dinner banquet he and a gaggle of Australian business leaders had with Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday night, for an end of Australia’s difficulties with China.
Xi made that crystal clear in the almost hour-long, pre-lunch meeting when the PM raised concerns about the lack of warning before the PLA Navy’s live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea earlier this year.
”President Xi said China engages in exercise just as Australia engages in exercises,” the PM told reporters.
In other words: get used to it.
It is an assertive message being taken increasingly seriously around the region – no where more so than in Taiwan.
Indeed as the PM attended his Beijing meetings, Taiwan held its annual Han Kuang military drills. Some of this week’s drills are taking place in Taipei, as President William Lai’s government tries to prepare the Taiwanese public for the realities of what would follow a feared Chinese attack.
China’s security state also did its bit to puncture the friendly bubble. On Tuesday morning, a posse of plainclothes security officers surrounded visiting Australian journalists who were filming by the Drum Tower, one of Beijing’s most beautiful Imperial-era structures. The visitors were told to delete all of their recordings – a routine encounter for international media based in China.
“China has a different system,” the PM said, euphemistically, when asked about the incident.
China’s Leninist system had made clear in a Tuesday editorial in one of its most influential state mastheads it was determined for the PM’s “notably long” six-night trip to be a success. It is revelling in the PM’s focus on economic ties and mostly upbeat rhetoric about Australia’s biggest trading partner.
In a tone-setting editorial, Beijing’s most authoritative English language organ, the China Daily, praised Albanese for his “clearer judgment and understanding of China” than his Coalition predecessor Scott Morrison.
“Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ongoing visit to China is not only of significance for the bilateral and trade relations between the two countries, it also sends a message amid the changing global trade landscape,” the China Daily declared, grandly.
It noted the trip was taking place “against the backdrop of rising tensions between the United States and many countries because of the US administration’s recent threat to levy higher tariffs on them”.
Xi did his bit to not spoil the mood. He did not bring up the PM’s election commitment to end the lease of Port of Darwin by Chinese company Landbridge, during their almost two hours together.
China’s leader instead wanted to focus on the big picture.
“With joint efforts from both sides, the China-Australia relationship has risen from the setback(s) and turned around, bringing tangible benefits to the Chinese and Australian peoples,” Xi explained.
“The most important thing we can learn from this is that a commitment to equal treatment, to seeking common ground while sharing differences, pursuing mutually beneficial co-operation, serves the fundamental interests of our two countries and two peoples. No matter how the international landscape may evolve, we should uphold this overall direction unswervingly.”
China’s leader had reason to be in a good mood. A dear old friend was also in town.
Shortly before Albanese’s first meeting in the Great Hall, Russia’s long-serving Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dropped into the building, although it was not clear who he was meeting.
Vladimir Putin’s envoy is a frequent visitor and was also in Beijing’s Diaoyutai state guesthouse when Foreign Minister Penny Wong made her ice-breaking trip to China in December 2022.
The PM did not mention if Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – which European leaders have said is being propped up by China’s economic support – came up in his meeting with Xi, although Albanese did raise Australia’s desire for “peace” in the region.
However, before the usual suspects erupt at the presence of Russia’s Foreign Minister in Beijing at the same time as the PM, they need to get their heads around the fact India’s minister of external affairs S. Jaishankar was there too.
Jaishankar also popped into the Great Hall.
This is the Indian’s first trip to China since 2020 when New Delhi and Beijing’s relationship went into free fall after a deadly border clash during the peak of Xi’s wolf warrior period.
The Indian and Russian foreign ministers had attended a meeting of the Chinese-founded Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.
The visiting Australian PM reiterated his guiding philosophy for these times of change.
“Dialogue is how we advance our interests,” he said.
Or as former Secretary of State Antony Blinken observed not so long ago: “If you’re not at the table, you’ll probably be on the menu”.
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