As she makes her first trip to China since significant rifts in high-level contacts, Foreign Minister Penny Wong claims that Australia is on the right track to mending relations with China.
Wong said the most recent meetings were fruitful in assisting in the mending of the relationship that has experienced economic sanctions and political frictions in recent years after meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi tonight.
We’ve persisted in holding that if we manage our disputes carefully, we can strengthen our bilateral relationship and safeguard our respective national interests, Wong told the reporters.
The challenge facing this generation is that.
Wong made no further mention of the specifics of their conversation with Wang. Wong stated in her opening remarks that she wished to “examine a number of topics of relevance to Australia, including consular matters, trade barriers, human rights, and the global laws and norms that support our security and prosperity.”
She then informed the media that “of course” she had brought up the instances of Dr. Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei, two Australians who were detained, with the hope that they may “be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.”
Wong gave a general evaluation of how the relationship with China was progressively being healed rather than providing any specifics on how the conversations may have advanced the issues presented by Australia.
Maintaining “high-level interaction” and starting or resuming communication in areas including bilateral ties, consular affairs, trade and economic concerns, climate change, defense, and regional and international issues, she said, would be necessary for the next steps.
Wong’s visit falls on the 50th anniversary.
Wong had already expressed gratitude to China for the invitation upon his arrival in Beijing, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the two countries’ formal diplomatic ties.
Meetings “discussing many of the problems that are important to us,” according to Wong, are something she looks forward to.
The fact that Wong is visiting China for the first time in four years raises optimism that Australia will make headway in freeing the two Australian nationals who are being held in China and ending China’s restrictions on the import of Australian goods.
Since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won the election in May and took over as leader in place of Scott Morrison, Wong’s trip has contributed to a tentative thawing in relations between the two countries.
The first official encounter between the presidents of the two countries in six years took place when Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping met last month in Bali on the sidelines of the Group of 20 conference.
Since China blocked commerce and denied high-level meetings after Australia passed laws prohibiting foreign intervention in its internal affairs and demanded an independent investigation into the COVID-19 epidemic, relations between Australia and China have deteriorated.
Albanese has also stated that he is still dedicated to constructing a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, despite the French president characterizing the proposal as a “confrontation with China.”
Australia, which is a treaty ally of the US, is seen by China as a component of a plan to prevent it from establishing diplomatic and military dominance over the South China Sea and most of East Asia.
This has led a lot of countries, including Australia, to try to strike a balance between their important economic relationships with China and their long-standing security ties with the US.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday that Xi and Australian Governor-General David Hurley exchanged greetings on the 50th anniversary of their friendships without mentioning Wong’s visit.
According to Xi, cooperation between Australia and China has “achieved beneficial outcomes, providing real advantages to the people of the two nations.”
Xi said that the parties should “adhere to mutual respect (and) win-win principles” and that strong relationships are “conducive to achieving peace, stability, and development of the region and the world.”
Diplomatic ties between Australia and the Republic of China were first established in 1941, but they were broken after the Communist Party overthrew the Nationalist government in 1949, and they weren’t repaired until 1972.
