‘Patient, deliberate, calibrated’: Albanese walks trade-security tightrope in China

Shanghai: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will use a meeting with China’s Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday to spruik the benefits of Australia’s stabilised relationship with its largest trading partner after vowing not to back down on security issues, including taking back the Port of Darwin.

Speaking after a green steel roundtable on Monday, designed to bolster Australia’s crucial $100 billion iron ore exports to China, mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest warned that an overemphasis on security risks was hurting trade.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon arrive in Beijing on Monday night.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

The prime minister used his remarks after the roundtable, which included industry leaders from both nations, to paint Australia as a stable, open trading nation against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s stop-start trade wars.

“I think that Australia’s support for free and fair trade does provide potential opportunities for Australia in this region as well, not just with China, but with ASEAN nations,” Albanese said.

Trade will be central to Albanese’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and premier Li – who famously referred to Albanese as a “handsome boy” in 2023 – on Tuesday.

For the first time in almost a decade, Albanese and a delegation of business leaders, including Macquarie Group chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake and BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery, will meet with Chinese counterparts in Beijing.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks in Shanghai.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Albanese will use the CEO meeting to talk up the removal of Chinese trade strikes on goods like coal, barley, wine and rock lobster that were imposed after the Morrison government criticised China’s handling of COVID-19 and its assertive foreign policy.

“Of course [more open trade] has also benefited China,” Albanese will say, according to draft notes of his speech provided to this masthead.

The prime minister will use his speech at China’s historic Great Hall of the People, with Li and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in attendance, to point to Chinese industries that use Australian products and consumers who can enjoy Australian food.

“The resumption and the continued growth of trade in these areas is a reflection of the patient, deliberate and calibrated approach our government has taken to stabilising the relationship between Australia and China,” Albanese will say.

He will name trade, tourism, education, culture and climate change as areas where the two nations can collaborate.

Disagreements are likely to make Albanese’s agenda too, including China’s frustration with Australia’s decision to force a Chinese firm to end its lease of the Port of Darwin due to security concerns.

Albanese said his government would not be deterred when asked if he believed China might retaliate against the move because Chinese-owned firm Landbridge has leased the asset since 2015.

“The answer to that is no,” the prime minister said at a press conference in Shanghai’s Peninsula Hotel.

“We had a very clear position that we want the port to go into Australian ownership. We’ve been very clear about it … and we will go through that process.”

The port dispute, which has received significant negative attention in Chinese state media, reflects the depth of worry in Australia’s intelligence community about China having control of critical infrastructure. Putting the port back in Australian hands would be achieved by encouraging Landbridge to sell the asset or to force its divestment, a move that would trigger further Chinese displeasure.

Albanese said he was solely focused on his trip to China when asked if he was closer to securing a meeting with Trump, noting that previous Liberal prime ministers Tony Abbott and Malcolm Fraser had met with Chinese leaders before seeing their US counterparts.

Albanese suggested the Australian media had lost perspective in its coverage of his not having met with Trump.

Albanese declined to reveal what security or human rights he would discuss with Xi. He trumpeted his record of securing freedom for detained Australians when asked about Chinese-Australian pro-democracy activist Yang Hengjun, who is in prison after being given a suspended death sentence on murky espionage offences.

Billions in iron ore revenue for Australia’s strained budget would be safeguarded by stripping the use of coal out of the production of steel, Albanese said while flanked by the heads of the country’s largest miners. Fortescue mining billionaire Forrest, a long-time advocate of closer links with China, said worries about national security clouded the business relationship between the two nations.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese listens to Fortescue founder Andrew Forrest at a press conference in Shanghai on Monday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“Yes, security becomes a distraction,” Forrest said.

“We have people [in China] that want a peaceful, long-term relationship with Australia. Across Australia, we have people who want a peaceful, long-term relationship with China. The prime minister has brought us into the realm of that peaceful, long-term relationship.”

Australia sells about $100 billion of iron ore to China annually, but its dominance of the supply chain could be at risk from a global push reduce to reduce emissions from the steelmaking that the ore goes into. That could require higher grade ore, which is found in other countries.

To address that, Forrest and other miners are attempting to decarbonise the industry by using renewables to power the supply chain.

Forrest’s remarks came a day after the US made clear it wanted to know how Australia would act in a potential war with China over Taiwan.

Albanese said maintaining peace in the Indo-Pacific, which he said on Sunday was the purpose of the AUKUS submarine pact, would create the conditions for stronger economic ties.

“The economic relationship is obviously based upon a stable and secure region. We’ve seen the disruption that occurs when there is conflict in the world. That’s why we need to make sure that we do everything we can to promote peace and security in the region,” Albanese said.

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