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NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) \u2014 Australia\u2019s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he raised with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday his concerns about trade \u201cblockages,\u201d but did not walk away from their first face-to-face talks with any promises that the $13 billion barriers to Australian exports would be lifted.<\/p>\n
The Australian government described the talks on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Indonesia as the first formal bilateral meeting between the two nations\u2019 leaders since 2016, when Xi met then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.<\/p>\n
Bilateral relations plummeted since then over issues including Australia\u2019s ban on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei\u2019s involvement in 5G networks, calls for an independent inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic and new laws banning covert international interference in Australian politics.<\/p>\n
Since the center-left Labor Party came to power in May after nine years of conservative rule, Albanese has been calling for China to lift a series of official and unofficial barriers to Australian exports including beef, wine, seafood, wood and coal that cost $13 billion a year.<\/p>\n
Albanese described his 30-minute meeting with Xi as \u201csuccessful,\u201d \u201cpositive,\u201d \u201cwarm\u201d and \u201cconstructive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI put forward Australia\u2019s position when it comes to the blockages in our trading relationship,\u201d Albanese told reporters on the resort island of Bali.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a positive discussion. We put forward our position. It was not anticipated that a meeting such as that you get immediate declarations. I believe if people thought that would happen, then that was not realistic,\u201d Albanese added.<\/p>\n
Xi told Albanese in his opening remarks at the meeting that bilateral relations had \u201cencountered some difficulties\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should improve, maintain and develop the relations between the two countries, which is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples and conducive to promoting the development of peace in the Asia-Pacific region and the world,\u201d Xi said.<\/p>\n
Xi noted that Albanese had repeated since becoming prime minister that \u201cChina-Australia relations will be handled in a mature way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI attach great importance to your opinion,\u201d Xi said.<\/p>\n
Albanese said the two leaders also discussed human rights in China\u2019s western Xinjang region, Chinese-born Australian citizens Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei who are detained in China, climate change, self-ruled Taiwan and Australia\u2019s desire for Beijing to use its influence on Russia to prevent the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s deal with the United States and Britain announced last year to create an Australian submarine fleet powered with U.S. nuclear technology was not raised, Albanese said.<\/p>\n
The Chinese People\u2019s Daily English-language newspaper reported last week that \u201csigns of resetting bilateral ties have emerged\u201d since Albanese\u2019s government came to power in May.<\/p>\n
Beijing immediately lifted a ban on minister-to-minister contacts after the election.<\/p>\n
Albanese said both leaders agreed on Tuesday that dialogue between their governments would continue.<\/p>\n
Xi met Turnbull on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017, but the Australian government considers their talks a year earlier were the last formal bilateral meeting between the two countries.<\/p>\n
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NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) \u2014 Australia\u2019s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he raised with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday his concerns about trade \u201cblockages,\u201d but did not walk away from their first face-to-face talks with any promises that the $13 billion barriers to Australian exports would be lifted. The Australian government described the talks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-204975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}