Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called on Beijing to admit it was a mistake to impose economic coercion on Australia and to remove trade barriers that have been place since 2020.
The comments by Albanese come days after Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Summit in Bali, Indonesia on July 8.
“A range of our goods have been the subject of not allowing open markets to operate, and that’s placing pressure on those businesses, and China needs to acknowledge that there’s no justification for this and remove it.”
He said that China should be welcoming Australian produce, which is the best in the world.
Sino-Australian Diplomatic Thaw Moving Slowly
The current diplomatic thaw between Beijing and Canberra appears to be moving at a glacial pace despite some breakthroughs, notably the meeting between Wong and Wang—the first high-level ministerial meeting in almost three years.“I think it is a fair summation to say we both recognise it is the first step for both our nations. We’ve got a path to walk, and you know, we'll see if it can lead to a better place between the two countries,” Wong said.
She said Beijing would make decisions based on its “national interests” and “sovereignty,” adding that it was in their interests for bilateral ties to be “stabilised.”
A point Albanese reiterated to the ABC when asked if there had been any change to the diplomatic relationship since the meeting.
“There hasn’t been any immediate change. And that’s why Penny Wong said very clearly that this was just a step forward. That change would be slow. But Australia will continue to assert our national interests, which are that these sanctions should be removed,” he said.
“There’s no ambiguity about our position,” Albanese said. “We'll continue to raise human rights issues that Australians have been detained unfairly in China.
Authoritarian Regimes Trying to Reshape World Order
Meanwhile, Australia’s Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie warned the Henry Jackson Society conference in the UK that authoritarian powers were “on the move” and sought to “reshape the world order and bend it to their liking.”He called for democratic nations to stand together against coercion.
“Individually, we might be able to resist authoritarian coercion—for a time. But no nation can go it alone,” Hastie said. “We know this from Down Under. The [People’s Republic of China] has used economic coercion to compel our political leadership to lift the ban on Huawei and ZTE participation in our 5G network.”
Hastie noted that despite the Chinese Embassy leaking a “laundry list of strategic demands” to Australian media calling for the then-federal government to abide by 14 conditions before diplomatic relations could resume—Australia had not conceded on any point.
“We have only been able to stand firm because of the strength of our relationships across the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Our values, shared with our friends, have been a force multiplier. And our best strategy is to stand together,” he said.
