China-Australia relations: ‘inevitable’ trade ties improve as ministers meet, take ‘important step’
- Australia’s Don Farrell spoke virtually with Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao on Monday in first meeting of Australian and Chinese trade ministers since 2019
- Farrell said he had also accepted an invitation to travel to Beijing ‘in the near future’ amid an overall thawing of relations
Australia trade minister Don Farrell urged a “resumption of unimpeded trade” with China on Monday after a landmark meeting with his Chinese counterpart, a step that analysts said will help restore bilateral relations after a turbulent last three years.
Farrell described the virtual meeting with Wang Wentao as representing “another important step in the stabilisation of Australia’s relations with China”, as the Chinese and Australian trade ministers met for the first time since 2019.
Farrell said he had also accepted an invitation to travel to Beijing “in the near future”, with Monday’s discussion pointing to a slow but steady return of trade ties, analysts said.
China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed “professional, pragmatic and candid exchanges” on handling major trade concerns and developing relations amid hopes that China might lift various import bans and restrictions on Australian products, including lobsters, barley and wine.
[Today’s strains] are disruptive, so who doesn’t want disruption to go away?
“I see it as relatively inevitable [that trade ties will improve], because Australia wants to sell to the single [Chinese] market,” said Stuart Orr, the head of the school head at the Melbourne Institute of Technology.
