Chinese Premier to visit Australia
Written by admin on June 11, 2024
Anthony Albanese has confirmed Australia’s worst kept diplomatic secret, officially announcing that China’s premier, Li Qiang, will visit the country this week – and his first stop will be a visit to the Adelaide Zoo.
News.com.au has confirmed he will arrive in Adelaide on Saturday evening, and then on Sunday he will visit the zoo and meet with wine exporters.
Giant pandas Fu Ni and Wang Wang are both at the South Australian zoo and have been on loan from China since 2009 under an agreement that was due to expire later this year.
Premier Li is expected to extend that arrangement and there are also hopes China will lift a ban on lobster exports as a result of his trip.
It is possible however that Fu Ni and Wang Wang will be replaced with another pair of breeding pandas, which was first reported following a meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in March.
China was previously by far the biggest market for Australian lobster — over 90 per cent of rock lobsters were sent there before China banned the export in 2020, citing fears of contamination.
Premier Li Qiang became the eighth premier of the People’s Republic of China in March 2023, hand-picked by Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping.
His visit will mark the first time a Chinese leader of his seniority has visited Australia since 2017.
Accompanied by the biggest Chinese business delegation that China has taken to Australia in nearly a decade, Premier Li Qiang will also attend a lunch with wine exporters.
The lunch with wine exporters will be attended by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Trade Minister Don Farrell and Agriculture Minister Murray Watt.
After the lunch he will fly to Canberra with a visit to Parliament House on Monday for the leader’s dialogue with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese before heading to Perth.
The Business Council of Australia will host a CEO roundtable in Perth, to be attended by senior representatives from the mining industry, the banks and agricultural exporters.
The visit follows the Prime Minister’s state visit to Beijing in November for talks with Xi Jinping and Mr Li, who urged more favourable treatment of Chinese investment bids.
The Prime Minister confirmed the visit at 4pm on Tuesday after playing coy with journalists as recently as Monday about his arrival.
“The potential visit of the Chinese Premier will be confirmed in the usual way,’’ he said on Monday.
“They are – confirm with statements which are simultaneously released in Canberra and Beijing. That will occur.
“But certainly I have said that I welcome the re-engagement that is occurring with China. It’s a good thing. We want to co-operate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, but we’ll engage in the national interest.
“And we have an annual bilateral leaders meeting. Last year I held that in Beijing. This year it’s due to be held here in Canberra.”
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New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced that China’s premier, Li Qiang, would visit the country on Monday.
It will be the first trip to New Zealand by a Chinese premier since Li Keqiang’s visit in 2017.
More to come
