Australia, China miss opportunity to reset ties

GENEVA • China's Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao was unable to meet Australia's new Trade Minister Don Farrell during a visit to Geneva, potentially delaying a reset in relations between the two countries.

Canberra and Beijing ended a diplomatic deep freeze lasting more than two years on Sunday, when Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and China's Defence Minister Wei Fenghe met on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there could be no formal warming of ties until China ends punitive measures targeting Australian exports, including barley, coal and wine.

A spokesman for Mr Farrell confirmed the Australian government reached out to Mr Wang for a meeting on the sidelines of the World Trade Organisation's 12th Ministerial Conference in Switzerland over the past week, but the Chinese minister was unavailable.

Relations between Australia and China deteriorated in April 2020 when then Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

Shortly after Mr Morrison's announcement, Australian exports to China began to encounter difficulties entering Chinese ports, such as lengthy customs delays and high tariffs.

Mr Marles described his talks with Mr Wei on Sunday as "frank" but also a "critical first step" in rebuilding relations.

But Mr Albanese downplayed the possibility of a diplomatic reset between the two countries on Tuesday, saying the relationship would remain cool until tariffs imposed by the Chinese government on Australian imports were lifted.

"It is China that has imposed sanctions, it is China that has changed, and it's China that needs to remove those sanctions," he said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing yesterday that Australia needed to show "mutual respect" in its dealings with Beijing, claiming it was "quite clear" how the original diplomatic rift started.

With its ties with China still unsorted, Australia is seeking "broad and deep" cooperation with Japan as the two nations face complex security circumstances in Asia as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation and Covid-19 disruption.

"It is clear that our region faces the most complex set of strategic circumstances we have known since the end of World War II," Mr Marles, who is also Defence Minister, said at a news briefing yesterday with his Japanese counterpart Nobuo Kishi after talks in Tokyo.

The allies have been increasing defence cooperation as a counterbalance to China's growing military power and influence in Asia.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is spurring a deepening of those ties, as concern that what Russia calls its "special operation" could encourage China to use force against self-ruled Taiwan.

Mr Marles said Australia and Japan would use a reciprocal access agreement signed in January to engage in deeper and more sophisticated cooperation that would strengthen their militaries' interoperability.

Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong, meanwhile, will travel to the Solomon Islands tomorrow to meet Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, amid concern over the regional impact of a security deal between the Pacific Islands nation and China.

The Solomon Islands security pact, as well as a proposal by China for a sweeping security and trade agreement with 10 Pacific Islands nations, will be discussed at next month's Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Suva, the capital of Fiji.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mr Sogavare in Honiara last month, as part of an eight-nation Pacific tour, agreeing to deepen cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands in fisheries, mining, infrastructure and trade.

Mr Wang said the security pact with the Solomon Islands would improve policing and protect Chinese citizens and institutions there.

BLOOMBERG, REUTERS