MELBOURNE, 15 Jun: Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in Australia on Saturday on a relations-mending mission with panda diplomacy, rock lobsters and China\u2019s global dominance in the critical minerals sector high on the agenda.
\nHis visit is the first by a Chinese premier in seven years and is expected to pave the way for President Xi Jinping\u2019s first journey to Australia since 2014.
\nBilateral relations collapsed during Australia\u2019s previous conservative administration\u2019s almost decade in power, with Beijing imposing a series of official and unofficial trade barriers in 2020 on Australian products which cost exporters billions of dollars.
\nThis is the second stop of Li\u2019s tour after New Zealand, and will end in Malaysia.
\nBefore leaving New Zealand, the premier told an audience in the city of Auckland on Saturday that his country was committed to creating a first-class business environment and supporting foreign enterprises to develop in China, according to Chinese state media.
\nLi said there was vast potential for China and New Zealand to collaborate in areas such as green development and that Beijing welcomed New Zealand enterprises, such as dairy company Fonterra, that seized such opportunities, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
\nDuring the Australian leg of his travels which ends on Tuesday, China\u2019s most powerful politician after Xi, is expected to visit Adelaide Zoo in the South Australia state capital where his Air China flight landed from Auckland.
\nAustralian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas greeted Li on the Adelaide Airport tarmac.
\nLi will also visit a Chinese-controlled lithium processing plant in the Kwinana Beach industrial estate in Western Australia state, as well as Australia\u2019s Parliament House in the national capital Canberra.
\nChina initiated a reset of the relationship after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese\u2019s center-left Labor Party was elected in 2022.
\nRelations with the previous administration collapsed over legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics, the exclusion of Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out the national 5G network due to security concerns, and Australia\u2019s call for an independent investigation into the causes of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
\nBeijing imposed an array of official and unofficial trade blocks in 2020 on a range of Australian exports including coal, wine, barley and wood that cost up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.
\nAll the trade bans have now been lifted except for Australian live lobster exports. Trade Minister Don Farrell predicted that impediment would also be lifted soon after Li\u2019s visit with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.
\n\u201cI\u2019d be very confident that the visit this week will result in a very successful outcome for lobster producers,\u201d Farrell told reporters Wednesday.
\nMany observers expect Australia will be more cautious about its future economic relationship with China after being subjected to what many see as economic coercion in recent years.
\nAustralian National University China expert Benjamin Herscovitch describes an \u201cemerging expectations gap\u201d between Beijing and Canberra.
\n\u201cBeijing, now that the coercion campaign is over, wants to \u2026 turn the page and launch into a more expansive, more positive, more cooperative bilateral relationship,\u201d Herscovitch said.
\n\u201cCanberra\u2019s saying: \u2018Look. Hold on. We want the trade restrictions gone and we want high-level diplomacy restored. But we\u2019re not interested in deeper science and technology cooperation with China because we see that potentially from an Australian point of view as a security threat,\u2019\u201d Herscovitch added.
\nLi intends to visit Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia\u2019s processing plant south of the Western Australia capital Perth on Tuesday to underscore China\u2019s interest in investing in critical minerals, news media have reported. The plant produces battery-grade lithium hydroxide for electric vehicles.
\nAustralia shares the United States\u2019 concerns over China\u2019s dominance in the critical minerals, which are essential components in the world\u2019s transition to renewable energy sources.
\nCiting Australia\u2019s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently ordered five Chinese-linked companies to divest their shares in the rare earth mining company, Northern Minerals.
\nLess controversially, Li is expected to make a visit Sunday to Adelaide Zoo, which has been the home of China-born giant pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni since 2009.
\nThe Adelaide Advertiser newspaper has reported Li will announce the pandas will be replaced by another breeding pair after they return to China in November.
\nWhile the bilateral economic relationship is recovering from plumbing new lows in recent years, the security relationship between the two free trading partners appears more tense.
\nAn annual poll by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute foreign policy think tank released in June found 53% of Australian respondents saw China as more of a security threat than an economic partner.
\nAlbanese has said he will raise with Li during an annual leaders\u2019 meeting on Monday recent clashes between the two countries\u2019 militaries in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea which Australia argues endangered Australian personnel.
\nThe premier spent three days in New Zealand, a free trade partner with which China has enjoyed a more harmonious relationship than it has with Australia. Li described China and New Zealand as \u201cgood friends.\u201d
\nHis next stop will be Malaysia, where bilateral relations are further complicated by competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.
\nNew Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Li on Saturday: \u201cChina is one of New Zealand\u2019s most important and consequential relationships.\u201d
\nLi used the trip to express concerns at New Zealand\u2019s contemplation of joining a military technology-sharing arrangement under Australia\u2019s AUKUS pact with the United States and Britain. The pact\u2019s primary aim is to provide Australia with a fleet of submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE, 15 Jun: Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in Australia on Saturday on a relations-mending mission with panda diplomacy, rock lobsters and China\u2019s global dominance in the critical minerals sector high on the agenda. His visit is the first by a Chinese premier in seven years and is expected to pave the way for President […]<\/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-242250","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\/242250","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=242250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}