Albo spruiks China win, Xi dishes out warning

Anthony Albanese is declaring a major trade win with China despite simmering tensions highlighted by a warning from Xi Jinping.

The Prime Minister met with the Chinese President on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil on Monday (local time).

Speaking to media after the bilateral talks, Mr Albanese declared Canberra and Beijing had “restored trade between our two countries.”

“Impediments have been removed across a range of industries; wine, timber, coal, barley, seafood and as a result of that, some $20bn of trade has been resumed,” he told reporters.

“I’m confident that the agreement, which will see the lobster trade resumed in time for the Lunar New Year in 2025, will be delivered.

“I’ve said number of times that we will co-operate with China where we can.

“We’ll disagree where we must, but we’ll engage in our national interest, and we’ve managed to improve relations without compromising any of Australia’s national interests.”

But while Mr Albanese was keen to spruik trade stabilisation with Australia’s biggest trading partner, Mr Xi struck a far more cautious tone.

In joint remarks ahead of the talks, Mr Xi said there had been “some progress in China-Australia relations” over the past decade, but also “some twists and turns.”

“Now, our relations have realised a turnaround and continues to grow, bringing tangible benefits to our two peoples,” he said.

“So, this is the result of our collective hard work in the same direction, and should be maintained with great care.”

The Albanese government has sought to strike a balance between pushing for trade normalisation with Beijing while making multilateral efforts to contain China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia has also committed record amounts of cash to defence in a bid to rapidly expand its striking capabilities.

In his comments after the meeting, Mr Albanese said he had “raised issues that matter to us”.

“I raised the issues of human rights, I raised Taiwan, I raised cyber, I raised the supply of assets to Russia, I raised the ICBM missile test that I’d previously raised as well with the Chinese Premier,” he said, after being asked about the Chinese security threat.