A sitting Australian prime minister will set foot in China this year, for the first time since 2016.
In the 15 months since he was elected, Anthony Albanese has been battered by political realities,, and the economic headwinds that have pushed up interest rates, inflation and the stress levels of many Australians trying to pay their bills.
But the steady work of rebuilding the relationship with Beijing is leading to a phase both nations are calling stabilisation.
That’s despite the fact that Australia has welded its foreign policy to the United States and the United Kingdom by giving bipartisan backing to the AUKUS deal to secure the technology for nuclear-powered submarines.
It was a year ago, in the belly of Bali’s resort district, that Albanese sat down leader to leader, to hash out a working relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping after the and foreign policy positions dissembled the Canberra-Beijing diplomatic open line.
Thursday's Jakarta meeting with Xi’s second-in-command Li Qiang was characterised by Albanese as respectful, constructive and positive.
China watcher and University of New South Wales academic Jennifer Hsu notes it was during a trip to the Philippines in August that Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles restated support for the 2016 decision made at The Hague “which to a great extent invalidated China’s claim to almost all of the South China Sea."
A senior Australian government official described Australia's role as a balancing act, saying all countries in the region need to be grown up and mature.
The dividend of this effort is immense, the government calculating it’s whittled down the trade barriers from more than $20 billion down to $2.5 billion since being elected.
Australia is back on the map for the highly lucrative group tourism market. but the wine industry continues to languish.
Beyond trade, Albanese confirmed he raised the high-profile cases of indefinitely detained Australians Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun and the low-profile cases of three people on drugs charges he did not name who are on death row in China.
Human rights in Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang were also on the table.
Under media questioning, the prime minister confirmed it was not a one-way street and the Chinese premier raised “some issues” on trade and economic relations. Albanese did not elaborate.
But the most challenging part of the highwire act is the security relationship and the military jockeying in the region.
China provocatively released a ten-dash line map, claiming most of the South China Sea and territory on the Indian border, sparking a furore from affected countries and states.
The engagement with Li is the first high-level political meeting since Albanese went to San Diego for the launch of the AUKUS deal, on a tri-podium surrounded by surfacing subs.
But Albanese said Li did not raise concerns about Australia acquiring nuclear submarine capability in their Jakarta talks yesterday.
The prime minister walked out of that conference room and promptly packed his bags for the Philippines, a nation that has granted the United States access to multiple military bases and was recently at the centre of a furore when its vessels were blocked by Chinese water cannon.
The intertwined trade and security relationship means that it was always going to be hard.
But on trade at least it appears to be working.
