logo
Australian prime minister indulges in panda diplomacy a China state visit nears end

Australian prime minister indulges in panda diplomacy a China state visit nears end

Independent17-07-2025
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited a panda breeding facility in the final stages of an extended state visit that has cast China as a fellow champion of a global fair trade system under threat from the United States.
The panda diplomacy stop Thursday in the central Chinese city of Chengdu highlighted Australia's special status as the only Southern Hemisphere country to host a pair of the rare Chinese native animals.
Albanese and his fiancée Jodie Haydon visited a pen where they saw Fu Ni, a giant panda who had been on loan to Australia's Adelaide Zoo until last year.
'A great ambassador for China and a great friend of Australia,' Albanese said of Fu Ni as she chomped on bamboo.
China loans Australia pandas
Premier Li Qiang used a visit to the Adelaide Zoo last year to announce Fu Ni and her partner Wang Wang would be replaced by another China-born pair that will hopefully breed .
The new couple, Xing Qiu and Yi Yan, made their public debut in January at the zoo in the South Australia state capital where they are a major tourist attraction.
Albanese's China, which began Saturday and ends on Friday, is extraordinarily long compared with Australian state visits over the past decade and marks a normalization of bilateral relations that plumbed to new depths under the previous Australian government.
Albanese said he had visited Chengdu and the Great Wall of China, as well at the usual diplomatic destinations of Beijing and Shanghai, as a show of respect to the Chinese people.
'The Great Wall of China symbolises the extraordinary history and culture here in China, and showing a bit of respect to people never cost anything. But you know what it does? It gives you a reward,' Albanese told reporters.
'One of the things that I find about giving countries respect is that you get it back,' he added.
In 2020, Beijing banned minister-to-minister contacts and imposed a series of official and unofficial trade barriers on commodities including wine, beef, coal, barley and lobsters that cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year. This was a response to Australia's previous government demanding an independent inquiry into the causes of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the pandemic was the final straw, relations had been deteriorating for years over issues including laws banning covert foreign interference in Australian politics and Australia banning Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on security grounds from involvement in the national 5G network rollout.
The trade barriers have all been lifted since Albanese's center-left Labor Party was first elected in 2022. But now, the United States threatens to become a major disruptor to global trade through President Donald Trump's tariff regime.
Chinese president urges Australia to hold course
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Albanese at the outset of their bilateral meeting in Beijing Tuesday that the important thing their two countries had learned in repairing relations was that equal treatment, seeking common ground and pursuing cooperation served the interests of both.
'No matter how the international landscape may evolve, we should uphold this overall direction unswervingly,' Xi said through an interpreter. The comment was widely interpreted as a reference to U.S. tariffs.
Albanese replied that his government welcomed progressing cooperation under their decade-old bilateral free trade agreement.
'Australia will remain a strong supporter of free and fair trade,' Albanese said.
The United States has allocated Australia the minimum 10% tariff on U.S. imports. Australia argues that any tariff cannot be justified and that the U.S. has enjoyed a trade surplus with Australia for decades.
The greater economic damage for Australia would likely be from a Chinese economic downturn caused by its U.S. tariff treatment. Around a third of Australian exports go to China.
Australia shifts away from the US
James Laurenceson, director of the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute, described China's presentation of itself as Australia's ally in defending free trade as 'self-serving."
'It's not so much Australia aligning with China. It's really just about Australia and China agreeing they've got a shared interest in the existing system, and it's the U.S. that's walking away from that,' Laurenceson said.
'I don't think the big shift this week is Australia getting closer to China. I think the distance with the United States is getting wider and wider,' he added.
Albanese's political enemies have criticised him for now having four face-to-face meetings with Xi – including two in Beijing – while the prime minister has yet to meet Trump in person.
Albanese and Trump were to hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit in Canada last month, but the U.S. president left early.
Albanese said this week he expected to meet Trump this year.
'I look forward to a constructive engagement with President Trump. We have had three constructive phone conversations,' Albanese said.
______
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Australia and UK to sign 50-year defense agreement
Australia and UK to sign 50-year defense agreement

Daily Mail​

time40 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Australia and UK to sign 50-year defense agreement

Australia and the UK are pledging a half-century alliance, shifting the two nations closer together while the US wavers in its support for a crucial nuclear submarine program. A 50-year treaty to underpin the three-nation security pact will be signed after Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles meet their counterparts for talks in Sydney . The AUKUS security partnership involves the US, UK and Australia, but the fresh treaty is only between London and Canberra. In opening remarks with UK leaders, Marles said the two nations' relationship might be Australia's most important partnership. 'We rely on each other in so many ways and obviously, combined, we are part of a system that gives us tremendous intelligence capability and military capability,' he said. While negotiations over the defense agreement were flagged before US President Donald Trump took power, the document's inking shows the UK and Australia are strengthening ties in the face of American tariffs and the Pentagon's yet-to-be-completed AUKUS review. But the planned sale of US-built boats has been up in the air since the Trump administration launched a review of the deal to examine whether it aligns with his 'America first' agenda. Defence analysts believe a likely outcome of the US review will be a request for more money from Australia to support its submarine industrial base. Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Alex Bristow said holding ministerial meetings every six months, rather than the traditional annual timeline, highlighted strengthened ties between the two nations. 'The tempo of it increasing, I think, is a signal that Britain is moving into an elite category,' he said. The UK's Carrier Strike Group, led by the Royal Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales, arrived in Darwin on Wednesday during Talisman Sabre multi-nation military exercises hosted by Australia. It's the first UK carrier strike group to visit Australia since 1997. The international task group includes five core ships, 24 jets and 17 helicopters, centered on the flagship aircraft carrier.

Investors eye possible US-Europe trade deal as deadline looms
Investors eye possible US-Europe trade deal as deadline looms

Reuters

time40 minutes ago

  • Reuters

Investors eye possible US-Europe trade deal as deadline looms

NEW YORK, July 26 (Reuters) - Investors are hopeful a potential trade deal between the U.S. and European Union could bring more certainty to markets ahead of next Friday's tariffs deadline. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday in Scotland after EU officials and diplomats said they expected to reach a framework deal this weekend. Trump on Friday said there was a 50-50 chance or perhaps less that the U.S. would reach a trade agreement with the EU. Trade tensions between the U.S. and Europe may have provided some investors with a rationale to be cautious, said Sameer Samana, head of global equities and real assets at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. "It's one of our largest trading relationships... So if that last piece falls into place, then you've probably got at the margin more people that have to get back in the markets," Samana said. "It's been a source of uncertainty that will go away." A deal would likely include a 15% baseline tariff on all EU goods entering the U.S. and probably a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminum, the officials and diplomats said. Optimism over easing trade tensions broadly has helped push U.S. stocks to record highs. Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" announcement of sweeping global tariffs sent stocks plunging in the immediate aftermath, due to spiking fears about a recession that have since faded. Still, investors have been bracing for increased volatility heading into August 1, which the U.S. has set as a deadline for raising levies on a broad swath of trading partners. The EU is facing U.S. tariffs on more than 70% of its exports - 50% on steel and aluminum, 25% on cars and car parts and a 10% levy on most other EU goods, which Trump has said he would hike to 30% on August 1. Hopes for a deal with Europe rose after Trump struck a trade agreement with Japan earlier in the week. "The deal with Japan and the likely one soon with the EU are especially important given both are major U.S. trading partners, together accounting for about a quarter of all goods imports," analysts at Capital Economics said in a note on Friday. In the agreement with Japan, the country's auto sector, which accounts for more than a quarter of its U.S. exports, will see existing tariffs cut to 15% from levies totaling 27.5% previously. An agreement that also lowers EU auto tariffs to 15% "would be no small deal" for the region as well, as about 10% of its shipments to the U.S. are in the same category, Capital Economics said. Investors over the weekend were also watching for developments on trade between the U.S. and China. Officials from the two countries plan to meet in Stockholm next week to discuss extending an August 12 deadline for negotiating a deal.

Trading Day: Ending on another high
Trading Day: Ending on another high

Reuters

timean hour ago

  • Reuters

Trading Day: Ending on another high

ORLANDO, Florida, July 25 (Reuters) - - TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist I'd love to hear from you, so please reach out to me with comments at opens new tab. You can also follow me at @ReutersJamie and @ For the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, the week ended on Friday as it began on Monday: new highs on growing confidence that the U.S. will strike favorable trade deals with major trading partners and that tariffs won't choke growth, and optimism around the earnings-boosting power of artificial intelligence. This offset some less encouraging signals from U.S. and European earnings about the impact of tariffs and trade uncertainty. But the bulls are in control, it seems, and markets go into next week's heavy event risk at or near their all-time highs. This Week's Key Market Moves Ending on another high The week just ended saw a wave of record stock market highs on Wall Street and around the world as investors cheered the US-Japan trade deal and a raft of corporate earnings results. Next week will be packed with even more market-sensitive events. Policy decisions from the Fed and other major central banks, Fed Chair Jerome Powell's press conference, U.S. PCE inflation, earnings from four of the 'Magnificent Seven' tech giants, and Washington's August 1 tariff deadline for most countries await. Meanwhile, U.S. and Chinese officials will meet in Stockholm to discuss extending the August 12 deadline for reaching a trade deal. This will be U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's third round of talks with his Chinese counterparts That's a lot to be heaped onto investors' plate, and one wonders how they will digest it all. It wouldn't be a surprise if market volatility picked up from surprisingly low levels - the VIX index is the lowest in five months, and the Treasury market's MOVE index is near its recent three and a half-year low. Meanwhile, demand for U.S. government debt will be tested as the Treasury auctions $173 billion of notes in the 2-7 year part of the curve. Recent auctions of longer-dated bonds have drawn strong demand and foreign private sector investors bought huge quantities of Treasuries in May, which bodes well. But the sales come as Treasury also announces its quarterly refunding plans, a reminder that investors will have around $1 trillion of new debt to absorb by year end, an increasing share of that in bills. Chart of the Week What's driving the rally on Wall Street? Lots of things, including tariff relief, trade deals, and renewed optimism around AI. One potential red flag, however, is the amount of leverage fueling it. Figures from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) show that margin debt in U.S. stocks has crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time. This comprises retail and institutional investors, but is thought to be more skewed toward the retail cohort. Of course, investors' margin debt should rise over time in line with inflation and the underlying equity indices. But it's a marker. Here are some of the best things I read this week: What could move markets on Monday? Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Trading Day is also sent by email every weekday morning. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store