Australia, China Leaders to Meet on the Sidelines of the G20

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives at Ngurah Rai International airport in Denpasar on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Nov. 14, 2022. (Firdia Lisnawati/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Leaders from Australia and China have agreed to meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, suggesting a thawing in diplomatic relations.

This will be the first time in over two years that leaders have met after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took issue with the Australian Morrison government calling for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 in 2020.

In response, the CCP launched an 18-month-long economic coercion campaign against Australian exports estimated to have cost producers $20 billion (US$13.4 billion) in trade.

During the announcement in Bali, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was looking forward to having a constructive meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“We enter this discussion with goodwill. There are no preconditions on this discussion,” he said on Nov. 14.

“I’ve said since I became the prime minister, but before then as well, that dialogue is always a good thing. We need to talk in order to develop mutual understanding.”

The meeting comes after Albanese briefly met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh.

Beijing Wants Australia to Meet Them ‘Halfway’

Chinese Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, previously said told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7:30 Report the government should put effort into meeting Beijing “halfway” and for a “favourable atmosphere” to exist before any resumption of high-level relations.

However, he sidestepped questions about the type of conditions the CCP wanted.

In 2020, representatives of Beijing leaked a document to media outlets containing “14 grievances” that the Australian government had to fulfil before bilateral ties could be reset.

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These include ending negative commentary on the CCP from Australian media outlets and MPs; ending calls for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19; stopping building a coalition of partners in the Indo-Pacific; ending the ban on Huawei from the nation’s 5G network; and remove Australia’s foreign interference laws.

PM Says He Will Stand Firm on Australia’s National Interests

Albanese has indicated he will not compromise on Australia’s national interests.

“It’s not Australia that’s changed; China has,” Albanese told reporters in May. “It is China that has placed sanctions on Australia. There is no justification for doing that, and that’s why they should be removed.”

The prime minister also said Beijing needed to withdraw its list of 14 demands.

“I, whenever asked—must have been hundreds of times now—have said that the demands, which were placed by China, are entirely inappropriate. We reject all of them. We will determine our own values. We will determine Australia’s future direction,” Albanese said.

In Bali, the prime minister reiterated the above sentiment saying he would put Australia’s position forward to the Chinese leader.

“Australia will put forward our own position. I look forward to having a constructive discussion with President Xi tomorrow,” he said.

Meanwhile, Australian MPs are calling for Beijing to remove the sanctions.

“These trade restrictions are obviously not in Australia’s interests, not in the interests of our employers and our exporters in particular, and we want to see them lifted,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Nov. 15. “It would be in the interests of a more stable relationship if that were to occur. We’ve made that very clear for some time. Part of stabilising this relationship would ideally mean the removal of those restrictions.”

Chalmers also played down any hope that the meeting would solve Australia and China’s differences quicky.

“First of all, we do need to recognise that when we have these big differences with China, one meeting is not going to solve all of them in one hit,” he said.

“As I said, this is about engaging. It’s been a long time since this has occurred, and so it’s an opportunity to open up a dialogue. I don’t think anybody pretends that some of the issues that China has raised, certainly some of the issues that we have raised, will be solved overnight.”