Assistant Minister: Despite PM’s Visit, Australia Will Not Reset Relationship with China
It’s not possible to turn back time. We can’t reset the relationship to what it was back in 2016,
said an assistant minister.
The Australian government has stated that its relationship with China will not return to what it was in 2016, before the diplomatic fallout between the two sides.
This comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is currently visiting China to mend the bilateral relationship and discuss trade issues.
Mr. Albanese landed in Shanghai on Nov. 4 evening, marking the first visit of an Australian prime minister to China in seven years.
In an interview with Sky News Australia, Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts said the prime minister’s visit was a significant event aiming to deliver the results for the Australian people.
This visit allows for high-level engagement on the issues that matter for Australia. And dialogue in itself is important,he said.
It’s a way for us to find those areas, to cooperate. And high-level dialogue like this is the best possible opportunity for us to pursue that approach,
he added.
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Nevertheless, the assistant minister said that the federal government was not attempting to reset the relationship between the two countries but was rather aiming to stabilise it.
It’s not possible to turn back time. We can’t reset the relationship to what it was back in 2016, and the reason for that is because now it is not possible to separate those previously distinct trade and strategic policy issues,
he said.
We see very clearly that China pursues a coordinated international strategy across its trade and strategic policy levers.
That’s the reality of the new world that we operate in. So, we need to recognise that and adapt our own response.
Mr. Watts also noted that a stabilised relationship with China would allow Australia to protect its national interests and sovereignty as well as pursue strategic foreign and defence policies in the region.
Government Concedes to CCP: Opposition
The Opposition claimed that the Labor government had made a number of concessions to Beijing prior to the prime minister’s visit to China.
Opposition spokesman for Home Affairs James Paterson said the federal government had withdrawn its complaint of the Chinese regime’s tariffs on Australian barley and wine through the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which he said was beneficial to the Chinese Communist Party’s image of upholding the international rules-based order.
Australia withdrawing our compliance or pausing our compliance under those mechanisms is an important concession very much welcomed by the Chinese government,he told Sky News Australia.
Mr. Paterson also pointed to the Labor government’s
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