‘Stable ties’ with Beijing as Chinese spy ships head our way

Defence officials are bracing for the arrival of Chinese spy ships off Australia’s coast in coming days as Anthony Albanese prepares to press the flesh with Xi Jinping.

Anthony Albanese in Sydney on Friday. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

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Defence officials are bracing for the arrival of Chinese spy ships off Australia’s coast in coming days as Anthony Albanese prepares to press the flesh with the country’s President, Xi Jinping, during a ­record five-day trip taking in Shanghai, Beijing and panda capital Chengdu.

The Prime Minister, who ­departs for China on Saturday, will use the visit to highlight his government’s efforts to stabilise ties with the nation’s biggest trading partner, while sidestepping difficult questions on Beijing’s strategic intentions.

The trip coincides with the start of Australia’s largest military exercise, Talisman Sabre, which is expected to be watched at a ­distance by multiple Chinese surveillance ships after it gets under way on Sunday.

A Defence spokeswoman told The Australian: “It would not be unusual or unexpected for China to monitor Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025, as it has during previous iterations of this exercise. Defence monitors all traffic in our maritime approaches.”

The biennial war games will bring together military personnel and equipment from 19 nations for land, air, sea, space and cyber exercises, offering a rich intelligence-gathering opportunity for Beijing, which has sent spy ships to lurk off Queensland for the past three Talisman Sabres.

Mr Albanese, who is yet to meet Donald Trump in person, will have his fourth meeting with Mr Xi during the trip, as well as annual talks with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and a sit-down with National People’s Congress chairman Zhao Leji.

The visit is the longest by an Australian prime minister to China in living memory and comes amid tensions between Australia and the US over the Prime Minister’s refusal to lift ­defence spending and the Pentagon’s snap review of the AUKUS submarine program.

It comes just over six months after Beijing lifted the last of its $20bn worth of punitive trade bans on Australian exporters. Australia’s biggest companies are keen to leverage the improvement in relations, with Mr Albanese to be accompanied by a delegation of CEOs led by the Business Council of Australia.

It was all hand-holding and smiles for Mr Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping at last year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. Picture: Getty Images

China will attempt to drive a further wedge between Australia and its closest ally during the trip by urging closer trade co-operation to counter Mr Trump’s tariff chaos. It is expected to renew its calls for Australia to back its bid to join the 12-nation trans-Pacific trade deal, seek the relaxation of Australia’s foreign investment rules, and urge co-operation on artificial intelligence. All are red lines for Canberra.

Beijing is also likely to pressure Mr Albanese to abandon his pledge to force ­Chinese-owned company Landbridge to relinquish its lease over the Port of Darwin, amid government ­silence on the issue since the election.

Mr Albanese said he would raise the “full range of issues” in the nations’ bilateral relationship in his closed-door talks with China’s leaders. These will ­include a call for the release of ­detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun, and for Beijing to maintain the status quo on Taiwan and allow freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

“We co-operate where we can and we disagree where we must, and we’re able to have those honest conversations about some of the disagreements that are there,” Mr Albanese said on Friday.

“Australia and China have different political systems. We have, therefore, different values that are reflected in those political systems. But we have got to be able to have that engagement directly and that is what we will be doing.”

Beijing will put on a show of “panda diplomacy” during a visit by Mr Albanese to the world’s largest panda breeding facility, in Chengdu.

The Prime Minister said he was “pro-panda”, and a big supporter of the pandas on loan from Beijing at the Adelaide Zoo.

“That is a major tourist attraction but it is also a sign of friendship between our two countries,” Mr Albanese said.

He will also catch up with former Socceroos playing in the Chinese Super League, and talk up Chinese tourism to Australia during a visit to Trip.com headquarters in Shanghai.

China is far and away Australia’s largest trading partner, with total two-way goods and services trade valued at $312bn in 2024 – more than Australia’s next three trading partners combined.

But Foreign Minister Penny Wong has repeatedly warned Australia is in a “permanent state of competition” with China in the Indo-Pacific, and on Thursday expressed alarm as Beijing’s massive military build-up across the region.

Giant panda Xing Qiu makes his public debut at Adelaide Zoo in January. Picture: Brett Hartwig

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Mr Albanese should echo his Foreign Minister’s comments in his meeting with Mr Xi. “Australia’s position on stability in the Indo-Pacific should be made clear by the Prime Minister when he is in China,” Senator Cash said.

“Mr Albanese should also make it clear that Australia strongly supports the US presence in the Indo-Pacific and the contribution the US makes to ­stability of the region.”

The expected arrival of Chinese spy ships follows a surprise live-fire drill in February by a heavily armed PLA-Navy flotilla, which went on to circumnavigate the country in an unprecedented show of force.

Former Defence official ­Michael Shoebridge said Talisman Sabre was an “intelligence collection priority” for Beijing, which operates the world’s biggest bluewater navy.

“Every time this major exercise is held, China sends sophisticated intelligence collection ships to hoover up electronic and other and digital data about the ­weapons and systems and communications to compile countermeasures and understand vulnerabilities in US, Australian and other partners’ military capabilities,” he said.

“And so for China, their intelligence collection mission around Talisman Sabre is a core part of them preparing the PLA for war.”

He said Mr Albanese’s talk of a “stabilisation” in Australia’s relationship with China was “a fiction created by the Albanese government to obscure the destabilising military aggression China is producing in our region”.

However, Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black was upbeat over the state of bilateral ties, and the government’s efforts to keep them on track. “The business relationship that we have between Australia and China is incredibly important, and so we are very supportive of the government and the Prime Minister’s efforts to maintain and enhance that relationship,” he said.

Mr Black’s delegation includes the chiefs of 14 of the nation’s biggest companies, including Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue Metals Group, ANZ and Macquarie Group.

He said the business roundtable would look to deepen engagement between Australian firms and their Chinese counterparts in a range of fields, including clean energy and steel decarbonisation, education and “smart agriculture”.