First parliamentary delegation in five years about to visit China
A bipartisan group of federal politicians is set to visit our biggest trading partner, the first such trip since Beijing spectacularly denied visas to Andrew Hastie and James Paterson.
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A bipartisan parliamentary delegation is to visit China in October, the first such trip since Beijing denied visas to former Coalition government MPs Andrew Hastie and James Paterson in 2019 for failing to “repent” for their views on the rising super power.
The Australian can reveal the China trip has been approved by the offices of Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, but the participants are still to be confirmed.
President of the Senate, Labor’s Sue Lines, is under consideration to lead the delegation, but the West Australian senator’s office was not able to confirm she would do so late on Wednesday.
The Australian has learned fellow federal politicians in WA, whose economy is hugely reliant on China, have been lobbying for a spot on the trip, as have other MPs in seats with high proportions of Chinese-heritage Australians.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade declined to comment on the trip, redirecting The Australian to federal parliament’s International and Parliamentary Relations Office, which did not reply by late Wednesday.
Sources familiar with the China trip, which like nearly everything involving Canberra’s relationship with Beijing is highly sensitive, said it would include a stop in neighbouring Mongolia. All participants will be issued burner phones, standard on parliamentary trips to China and a rising number of overseas destinations.
China’s ambassador in Australia, Xiao Qian, has raised a potential parliamentary visit for more than a year, as his embassy has become frustrated with the frequency of trips by Australian federal politicians to Taiwan.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang raised the prospect in a meeting in Canberra in June with Senator Lines and Speaker of the House, Milton Dick, a Labor MP from Queensland.
A spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Canberra on Wednesday declined to comment about the trip.
The upcoming trip will take place just weeks after Jim Chalmers travels to China later this month the first visit by an Australian treasurer in seven years.
It is the latest sign of an improvement in diplomatic relations between Canberra and Beijing, which continues despite strategic tension between the countries.
It follows the news, also revealed this week in The Australian, that Australian apple farmers are poised to get market access to China’s huge market in November. Australian blueberry, avocado, pear, carrot and truffle farmers are also after access to China, which remains by far Australia’s biggest market for its agricultural exports, despite the trade coercion of recent years and the ongoing black-listing of live Australian lobster.
Both Labor and the Coalition are trying to pitch themselves as responsible managers of the Australia-China relationship, able to defend trade ties while not giving ground on key security concerns. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Trade Minister Don Farrell, the Opposition Leader, and the Coalition’s foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham and trade spokesman Kevin Hogan are scheduled to address the Australia China Business Council’s annual networking day in Canberra.
Mr Dutton has said winning back marginal seats with big Chinese heritage communities is a key priority for the Coalition at the upcoming federal election.
News of the parliamentary trip comes five years after Beijing made international headlines by denying visas for Mr Hastie and Senator Paterson, then Liberal backbenchers, for making “unwarranted attacks” on China.
China’s embassy in Canberra said at the time the pair, now both members of the Coalition’s shadow ministry, would be allowed to receive visas only if they “genuinely repent and redress their mistakes”. That demand provoked a diplomatic storm and undermined the credibility of the Australian think tank China Matters, which was organising the trip. China Matters has since been wound up.
The October trip will be funded by the Australian parliamentary travel budget and the itinerary will be overseen by DFAT.
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