Anthony Albanese faces date with Xi Jinping before Oval Office invite from Donald Trump

Anthony Albanese could meet Xi Jinping for a fourth time before getting his first face-to-face talks with Donald Trump, amid preparations for a prime ministerial visit to Beijing around the middle of July.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Anthony Albanese at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024. Picture: Getty Images

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Anthony Albanese could meet Xi Jinping for a fourth time before getting his first face-to-face talks with Donald Trump, amid preparations for a prime ministerial visit to Beijing around the middle of July.

While the government is scrambling to secure a meeting between the US President and Mr Albanese in Washington DC in coming weeks, plans for the Beijing trip are well advanced and could see him head to China first.

Multiple sources familiar with preparations for the China visit for the nations’ annual leaders’ talks were still waiting on final confirmation that the Prime Minister would proceed with the mid-July trip, despite the program having been largely finalised.

The Prime Minister’s office declined to provide any details, while senior government sources said securing the Trump meeting was the priority.

If those efforts failed and Mr Albanese headed to Beijing before Washington DC, it would underscore the current difficulties in the Australia-US relationship and potentially complicate his efforts to forge a personal relationship with Mr Trump, who is more hawkish on China than the Prime Minister.

Mr Trump has taken a hard line with Beijing, hitting it with punishing tariffs, halting semiconductor exports to China, and focusing US military power on preparing for a potential conflict with the Asian superpower.

The Albanese government has taken a different tack, stabilising Australia’s previously frayed ties with its biggest trading partner, adopting a “co-operate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest” mantra.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Coalition said Mr Albanese could combine the China visit with a trip to Washington DC, arguing that the need for a meeting with Mr Trump was now urgent. ­Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said: “Mr Albanese should make every effort to meet with Mr Trump as soon as possible. As he will already be overseas, Mr Albanese has a golden opportunity to also travel to the United States in July and meet with President Trump. It is important that Mr ­Albanese reaffirms the importance of (the) AUKUS (security pact with the US and the UK) during these uncertain times and that he also puts our case for tariff ­exemptions.”

The Prime Minister has had three phone calls with Mr Trump but the pair are yet to meet in ­person, with the President skipping their scheduled talks at the G7 summit in Canada this month due to the unfolding war in the Middle East.

Mr Albanese said the cancellation of the meeting was ­“understandable” given the circumstances, but he notably missed out on a follow-up phone call – a courtesy extended to other world leaders who were stood up in person by the President, including India’s Narendra Modi and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum.

Mr Albanese has met Mr Xi three times since he became Prime Minister: in November last year at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro; in November 2023 in Beijing; and at an icebreaking meeting in ­November 2022 at the G20 summit in Bali. It is China’s turn to host the countries’ leaders’ talks after ­Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Australia in June last year for the meeting.

The travel preparations came as Defence Minister Richard ­Marles prepared to face fresh US pressure at the NATO summit in the Netherlands for America’s ­allies to spend more on defence.

The prospect of a meeting between Mr Marles and Mr Trump at the summit diminished on Tuesday, after Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba cancelled plans to attend the conference, scuttling a scheduled meeting with the US President and NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners – Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

However, there was a possibility Mr Marles could get a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was expected to convene talks with NATO’s “Indo-Pacific Four”.

Any meeting with Mr Rubio would likely include a discussion of defence spending and the Trump administration’s snap 30-day review of AUKUS, which is due to be completed next month.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly called this month for Australia to increase its defence budget from its current 2 per cent of GDP to 3.5 per cent. In the March budget, the Albanese government only committed to an increase to 2.33 per cent.

Mr Hegseth’s move was followed soon after by a Pentagon announcement that AUKUS would be reviewed to ensure it was aligned with Mr Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace vice-­president for studies Evan ­Feigenbaum warned in a paper this week that a “quiet crisis” was brewing in the Australia-US alliance.

The respected strategic analyst said the US would not let up on Australia over the nation’s defence budget.

“That is almost certainly why, on June 11, Pentagon officials leaked a story to the Financial Times that they are not only reviewing the submarine and technology partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States but teased a linkage between the outcome of this review and Canberra’s next set of choices on defence spending,” Dr Feigenbaum wrote.

He said there was also a US ­expectation that Australia would commit to supporting the US in a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, but there was “no way” Canberra would do so.

Dr Feigenbaum said there were “inherently political” differences between the alliance partners.

“The back and forth between Hegseth and Albanese over the defence budget is a warning of what may come,” he said.