Arriving in Australia today on a relations-mending mission with panda diplomacy, rock lobsters and China’s worldwide domination in the key minerals industry top on the agenda, Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived.
Following President Xi Jinping, China’s most potent leader is slated to visit Parliament House in Canberra, a Chinese-owned lithium processing factory in the Kwinana Beach industrial zone, and Adelaide Zoo and another Chinese-owned lithium processing plant.
Tuesday will mark their visit’s end. Li’s visit marks the first by a Chinese premier in seven years and should open doors for Xi’s first trip to Australia since 2014. Following Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s election in 2022, China started a diplomatic reconciliation.
Australia’s demand for an independent inquiry into the causes of and responses to the COVID-19 epidemic, the exclusion of Chinese-owned telecom giant Huawei from rolling out the national 5G network due to security concerns, and the collapse of the relationship during the almost decade of power under the previous coalition government over legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics all point to one other.
Beijing placed an assortment of legal and unofficial trade restrictions on a range of Australian products including coal, wine, barley and timber costing up to $20 billion annually in 2020.
Except for Australian live lobster exports, all trade restrictions have since been abolished. Trade Minister Don Farrell expected that obstacle would also be removed shortly following Li’s visit with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
“I would be quite confident that the visit this week will produce a very successful outcome for lobster producers,” Farrell said to Wednesday media.
Having experienced what many view as economic coercion in recent years, many analysts anticipate Australia to be more cautious about its future economic ties with China. Fans of Chinese Premier Li Qiang wait on his arrival at Adelaide Airport, Australia, Saturday, June 15, 2024.
Expert Benjamin Herscovitch of Australian National University China notes a “emerging expectations gap” between Beijing and the Australian capital Canberra.
“Beijing wants to turn the page and launch into a more expansive, more positive, more cooperative bilateral relationship now that the coercion campaign is over,” Herscovitch told the ABC.
“Look, Canberra’s saying: Holding on is great. We want high-level diplomacy rebuilt and the trade restrictions gone.
But from an Australian point of view as a security danger,’ Herscovitch said, we are not interested in greater research and technology cooperation with China.
News sources have claimed Li plans to visit the Western Australia state processing plant of Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia on Tuesday to highlight China’s interest in investing in vital minerals.
The factory generates lithium hydroxide of battery grade for electric cars.
Australia has the same worries about China’s dominance in the vital minerals, which are fundamental ingredients for the global shift to renewable energy sources as United States.
Referring to Australia’s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently gave five Chinese-owned firms instructions to sell their Northern Minerals rare earth mining shares.
Less controversially, Li is scheduled to visit Adelaide Zoo, home of China-born giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni since 2009.
Sunday is her visit date. Li will say, according to the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper, another breeding pair will replace the pandas once they return to China in November.
Although the bilateral economic partnership is recovering from recent years’ plumbing new lows, the security connection between the two free trading partners seems to be increasingly strained. 53% of Australian respondents to a yearly poll by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute foreign policy think tank published in June considered China as more of a security danger than an economic partner.
Albanese has stated he will bring up with Li recent incidents between the forces of the two nations in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea that Australia claims harm Australian servicemen.
Li is on travel to New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysia. On Saturday he left New Zealand, ending a three-day trip to a nation China has had a more harmonic relationship with than Australia. Li said of China and New Zealand: “good friends.”
Malaysia will be his next trip; rival territorial claims in the South China Sea strain bilateral relations here.
On Saturday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Li: “China is one of New Zealand’s most important and consequential relationships.”
Li used the trip to voice worries about New Zealand’s considering a military technology sharing arrangement under Australia’s Aukus agreement with the US and Britain.
The main purpose of the agreement is to equip Australia with a fleet of US nuclear-powered submarines.
