Albanese's China trip shows ‘stiffening of Canberra's spine' in face of US pressure
Donald Trump cancelled talks with
Anthony Albanese , China rolled out the red carpet for the Australian leader this week.
In Beijing, he had a two-hour meeting with President
Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People. Albanese's fiancee, Jodie Haydon, joined the lunch that followed.
He held separate talks with Premier Li Qiang, and they co-chaired a CEO round table attended by nearly 30 Chinese and Australian business executives. At the banquet hosted by Li that evening, a band played iconic Australian anthems including 'a different version of Paul Kelly's 'To Her Door', of Midnight Oil's 'Power and the Passion'', Albanese later told reporters.
The Australian prime minister also visited Shanghai and Chengdu on a six-day trip that shed light on Canberra's approach to navigating great power rivalry after a reset in relations with Beijing. It showed how Australia is trying to maintain ties with China – its largest trading partner – and the alliance with the United States, while side-stepping thornier issues such as Beijing's
military activities and
Taiwan
'Australia's predicament is not unusual in the region,' said James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.
'I think there remains utility in Canberra's approach. The economic equities in relations with China and security equities in relations with the US are so large that making a binary choice is simply not realistic.'
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