No let-up by FIRB, Jim Chalmers tells China

Jim Chalmers has warned Beijing that Australia won’t relax foreign investment rules protecting critical minerals and infrastructure sectors as Anthony Albanese prepares to depart to China.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Tuesday. Picture: David Gray / AFP

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Jim Chalmers has warned Beijing that Australia won’t relax foreign investment rules protecting critical minerals and infrastructure sectors as Anthony Albanese prepares to depart on a six-day trip to China focused on strengthening bilateral trade and business ­opportunities.

The Prime Minister will depart for Shanghai on Saturday, before heading to Beijing and on to Chengdu.

The trip will see Mr Albanese meet for the fourth time with Xi Jinping. He will also meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang for annual leaders’ talks, and National People’s Congress chairman Zhao Leji.

The trip will have a heavy focus on trade and investment, with Mr Albanese accompanied by a Business Council of Australia delegation comprising the chiefs of 14 of the nation’s biggest companies including Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue Metals Group, ANZ and Macquarie Group.

China is likely to renew calls for greater access to investment opportunities in Australia, amid global calls by Beijing for improved trade and economic co-operation to counter US President Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught.

The government, which has vowed to force Chinese company Landbridge to relinquish its lease over the Port of Darwin, would rebuff any push for freer investment in sensitive sectors, the Treasurer said. While Dr Chalmers claimed the Foreign Investment Review Board’s decisions were “genuinely non-discriminatory” and “not country-specific”, the FIRB routinely approves stakes by friendly countries such as the US in key sectors off-limits to China.

Anthony Albanese with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro last November. Picture: PMO

“It takes a closer look at investments which are proposed in critical areas. Critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical data, critical energy. For good reason,” he said.

Dr Chalmers said “it would be unlikely that we would weaken our arrangements in those critical areas, but we are always looking for ways to speed up and streamline the process where that’s in our national economic interest”.

Beijing’s top diplomat in Canberra has already called for closer bilateral co-operation in the sensitive sector of artificial intelligence. This is a red line for Australia, which is concerned about security implications of a surge in internet-connected Chinese vehicles on Australian roads.

The trip comes after the Albanese government’s stabilisation of the Australia-China relationship in its first term, following Beijing’s punitive tariffs on $20bn in Australian exports a year.

Mr Albanese said: “China remains Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for almost one-third of our total trade, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Trade is now flowing freely, to the benefit of both countries

“We will continue to patiently and deliberately work towards a stable relationship with China, with dialogue at its core.”

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Justin Bassi said China’s strategic ambitions made it impossible for Australia or any other country to compartmentalise the bilateral trading relationship from national security concerns.

“This is why democracies should refrain from treating their relationships with China as bilateral ones and must instead see engagement, even trade, in the context of a collective show of strength and solidarity to avoid Beijing’s economic, military and technological power coercing individual nations,” Mr Bassi said.

“While there is no doubt the so-called ‘differences’ will be mentioned in private, any sign that those references are secondary to an Australian priority of increased trade and ministerial meetings will only result in more malign activity and insecurity for Australia.”

He said if Beijing saw a government “prioritising money and meetings over security and sovereignty, the relationship will forever be unequal, unjust and unsafe”.

Lowy Institute China expert Richard McGregor said Beijing would seek to lever Australia’s desire for closer trade ties to further its own agenda.

“Australia wants a stable relationship with China, which means one focused on two-way trade rather than political and technological co-operation,” Mr McGregor said.

“Beijing sees it the other way round – in other words, they think more trade, particularly when it is balanced in our favour, should mean more political co-operation on their terms.”

He said the lack of trust between Australia and China made closer technological co-operation impossible.

“If Australia believed that we couldn’t have a Chinese company like Huawei sit at the heart of our telecommunications network, then it is hard to see how we can make much space for Beijing’s AI champions, like DeepSeek, in our core systems,” he said.