Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirms ‘constructive’ meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping

Anthony Albanese will meet Xi Jinping on Tuesday for the first formal talks between Australia and China’s leaders in six years.

The face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the G20 comes after the Prime Minister spoke briefly with China’s Premier Li Keqiang at a gala dinner for the ASEAN summit on Saturday night.

It is a significant thawing in the relationship.

Mr Albanese said he was looking forward to a “constructive meeting” with the President.

“We enter this discussion with goodwill. There are no preconditions on this discussion,” he said on the tarmac immediately after landing in Bali, when he confirmed the meeting.

He later said the very fact of the meeting was a success.

“Because for six years we have not had any dialogue. And it is not in Australia’s interest to not have dialogue with our major trading partners,” he said.

“It is in Australia and China’s mutual interest for us to have an improvement in the relationship and that is what my objective is.”

Mr Xi last formally met an Australian Prime Minister when he had talks with Malcolm Turnbull on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Peru in 2016. The last time there was any communication was with Scott Morrison at the G20 in Japan in 2019.

Multiple issues over recent years have piled strain onto the relationship, including banning Chinese telco Huawei from the 5G rollout, human rights concerns over the treatment of the Uyghers, Australia’s calls for an investigation into COVID-19’s origins, and China imposing tariffs on Australian exports.

During the chat at the ASEAN dinner on Saturday, Mr Li told Mr Albanese people from China and Australia enjoyed traditional friendship but bilateral relations have gone through a difficult patch, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

Since Labor took power, there have been several ministerial-level meetings including between Penny Wong and Richard Marles and their counterparts.

Mr Li said China was now ready to meet Australia halfway and work to seize the opportunity of December’s 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations to promote sustained and steady growth in the relationship.

Asked what he understood “meeting halfway” to mean, Mr Albanese said Australia would put forward its own position during the bilateral meeting.

However, he has previously made it clear he will urge Mr Xi to lift the $20 billion in trade sanctions.

Business Council of Australia head Jennifer Westacott welcomed the “tremendous reset” in the relationship.

“We have to approach this relationship from a principle of realism and the Government, I think, has that very strongly in its focus. We’ve obviously had a lot of difficulties in the relationship, but you can’t fix those if you don’t have a dialogue,” she said.

US President Joe Biden met Mr Xi in Bali on Monday evening. The American leader had spent the days before consulting with friendly countries, including Australia, to make sure their positions on China were “well coordinated”.

Mr Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the President would make it clear that “the United States is prepared for stiff competition with China but does not seek conflict” and all countries should follow well-established, agreed rules including on an economic level playing field without intimidation or coercion.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said earlier on Monday all of Australia’s efforts were on “making the relationship between Australia and China more stable”.

“We would like to see as part of the stabilising of the relationship, some of those trade restrictions lifted. That’s a priority for us because it’s important for our economy,” he said.

Mr Chalmers joined Mr Albanese for talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo ahead of the formal G20 summit events.

The leaders witnessed the signing of a new deal between the Business Council of Australia and its Indonesian counterpart KADIN aimed at seizing the opportunities a growing Indonesia presents.

It also recognises the reality that an over-reliance on China has posed difficulties for Australian businesses.

Trade Minister Don Farrell said diversifying Australia’s trade streams to be less reliant on China – currently our largest trading partner – was a key plank of the Government’s policy.

“Trade blockages imposed by China have reinforced the importance of businesses taking a considered approach to minimising risk exposure,” he said in a speech to the RMIT APEC Study Centre in Melbourne.

But he said that position didn’t mean Australia could neglect its economic and trade relationship with China, since it accounted for more exports than Japan, the US and Korea combined.

Ms Westacott said a growing Indonesia offered huge opportunities in areas including education, clean energy and agriculture.

“It’s crucial that business form strategic partnerships with Indonesian companies because this economy will be critical as we diversify our supply chains and, in particular, as we cooperate to decarbonise energy supply chains,” she said.

Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest, who presented at the B20 forum, said business had a responsibility to drive the agendas governments set at meetings like the G20 and to hold each other to account.

“If businesses refuse to provide energy to the people in a manner that will not harm the planet, which will not destroy the environment, they’re forcing their consumers to be destructive,” he told The West.

“If essential items like food and water are served up in single-use plastic, again, you’re forcing your consumers to harm the planet. So business has a really big responsibility.”

At the G20 meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaders are expected to discuss the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The language on this is proving a sticking point for the summit’s final statement. Australia has been playing a bridge-building role in this, keen to support Mr Widodo as G20 chairman.

Mr Albanese condemned the invasion during the East Asia Summit on Sunday in front of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

It’s understood the Prime Minister intends to take a similar approach during the G20 rather than joining other leaders in actions which might embarrass Indonesia as the host nation.