Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the President of China, Xi Jinping in 2024. Albanese is in China on a key visit. Photo / Getty Images
Since landing in Shanghai at the weekend, Australia’s Prime Minister has repeatedly highlighted China’s importance to his country.
He has talked up how Australia supplies more than half of China’s iron ore imports, how Chinese tourists spend billions of dollars every year in Australia and how Australian cherries, beef, and wine feature in Lunar New Year celebrations in China.
Yesterday Anthony Albanese met China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing, pushing for even deeper ties with his country’s largest trading partner.
Neither leader publicly mentioned the United States or President Donald Trump but the backdrop of Washington’s volatile trade policies and increasing demands on allies was apparent.
Both Albanese and Xi said they had pledged to strengthen their relationship and look for areas of co-operation, a sign of the allure of the Chinese economy and the limits of Trump’s push for US partners to restrict trade with China.
Xi said ties between China and Australia should continue to grow “no matter how the international landscape may evolve”.
“I note your comments in your opening remarks about seeking common ground while sharing differences, that approach has indeed produced very positive benefits for both Australia and for China,” Albanese responded.
Albanese has made stabilising relations with China a hallmark of his foreign policy.
But he faces an increasingly delicate balancing act between maintaining ties with Australia’s most important ally, the US, and its biggest economic patron, China.
He is trying to bolster trade with China, even as Beijing asserts its military dominance closer and closer to Australia’s shores.
Xi acknowledged the turnaround in ties, saying relations “have emerged from their low point”.
Albanese also met Premier Li Qiang, China’s second-highest-ranking official.
But despite his efforts to keep the trip focused on trade, questions about security loomed over the six-day visit.
Albanese’s arrival in Shanghai coincided with a report in the Financial Times that the Pentagon was pressuring Australia and Japan to specify what they would do if China and the US went to war over Taiwan, the self-governed island claimed by Beijing.
After their meeting, Albanese said Xi made no mention of US demands regarding Taiwan.
The Prime Minister said he reaffirmed Australia’s position of supporting the “status quo” on Taiwan.
Both Japan and Australia are US allies, but committing to a response in such a war would be crippling to their important trade relationships with China, and highly unusual on the world stage.
Even the US itself will not say whether it would go to war for Taiwan, as part of a decades-old policy that aims to both deter China from attacking and dissuade Taiwan from seeking formal independence.
But Washington could try to exert pressure on Australian officials.
Last month, the Pentagon said it was reviewing whether a three-way security pact with Britain to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines aligns with the Trump Administration’s “America First criteria”.
“The tightrope along which it’s been walking between the US and China just got pulled tighter at both ends,” said James Curran, a historian at the University of Sydney.
Xi’s team will likely privately underscore to Australian officials how US calls for greater commitments over Taiwan make Washington an increasingly unreliable partner.
Beijing is trying to persuade countries such as Australia not to enter trade deals with the US that would restrict Chinese exports.
China has been casting itself as a defender of the global trading system, criticising the Trump Administration for disrupting the international economy with tariffs.
“In the face of the chaotic international situation, all countries should work together to uphold international justice, safeguard multilateralism and free trade,” Xi said during the leaders’ meeting.
Asked later how Trump’s trade policies have affected Sino-Australian ties, Albanese deflected, saying “Our relationship with China is very separate from that”.
Albanese’s first visit to Beijing as prime minister in 2023 came after several years of barbed rhetoric and punishing trade restrictions on Australian exports under an earlier government.
Since then, Australia has largely played up the importance of the economic relationship while remaining restrained in talking about China as a security threat.
In a sign of both nations’ desire for improved relations, some of the points of contention between the two appeared to have been glossed over or simply not broached yesterday.
Albanese said Xi did not bring up the port of Darwin, whose lease is held, controversially, by a Chinese company.
The Australian leader said he talked about Yang Hengjun, an Australian held on national security charges in China and facing a death sentence, but that no “immediate outcome” should be expected.
Still, Albanese’s approach in doubling down on economic relations carries its own pitfalls, said Michael Shoebridge, an analyst at Strategic Analysis Australia and a former defence and intelligence official.
“The thing that he overlooks is the enormous vulnerability and risk in deepening Australia’s already extraordinary level of trade dependence,” Shoebridge said.
“It turns out that greed beats fear every time.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Victoria Kim and David Pierson
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