China's Xi urges better ties following rare summit with Australian PM

China's President Xi Jinping met Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the margins of the G20 summit in Bali, marking the first time in five years that the leaders of the two countries have had a formal sitdown. 

After years of animosity which has hampered trade ties and prevented top-level meetings, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the conversation in Bali had been "positive and constructive".

Chinese President Xi Jinping said he hoped that soured relations with Australia could be improved. 

The talks lasted 32 minutes and took place on the margins of the G20 summit in Bali, but signal a major diplomatic shift.

Australian and Chinese leaders had a brief exchange at the 2019 G20 summit in Japan, but have not had a formal sitdown in more than half a decade.

'Panda bashing'

China's relationship with Australia started to lose altitude in 2018 with increasingly virulent rhetoric from both sides. Australia expressed worry about China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its stake in strategic Australian assets such as ports and mines. China initially scoffed at Canberra's protests to that effect.

“Somehow Australia is jumping up and down again and again. It is like chewing gum stuck to the bottom of China's shoe. Sometimes you just have to find a rock and rub it off," according to CCP mouthpiece Global Times editor Hu Xijin, who also accused Australia of “panda bashing”.

In Australia's popular culture, Netflx series such as "Secret City" and "Pine Gap" reflect increasing anxiety about China's growing influence on Canberra's politics.

Harsh line on human rights

Australia's most devastating criticism of China came from the Australia Strategic Policy (Aspi) Institute that published a wide range of articles and studies on human rights abuses, including the "architecture of repression," a database on the situation of the Muslim Uyghur miniority in the "autonomous region" of Xinjiang, and books with titles like "Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World" by Clive Hamilton, a Canberra-based scholar.

China's Foreign Ministry slammed Aspi as "an anti-China vanguard" whose academic integrity is in serious question because the institute receives '"funding from the US government and arms dealers." Global Times called "Hidden Hand" a "smokescreen" which was sponsored by "the Aussi spy agency."

Apart from being irked by Australian critics, China has been angered by Australia's willingness to legislate against overseas influence operations, to bar Huawei from 5G contracts and to call for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Punitive sanctions

In recent years, Beijing has levied punitive sanctions on Australian goods, suspended ministerial contacts and plunged relations into the most serious crisis since the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

Australian products from barley and coal to wine, beef and infant formula have all been subject to Chinese sanctions.

Xi said that previously warm ties between the two countries were "worth cherishing."

"We should improve, maintain and develop our relationship, as it is consistent with the fundamental interests of the people of both countries."

Australia's wealth is in large part based on selling China the resources it has needed to fuel its remarkable economic rise.

Australia is among the world's largest exporters of iron ore (used in steel,) coal and gas.

Canberra had tried to lower expectations that the talks would fix relations entirely or bring quick economic relief, framing the face-to-face meeting as a victory in itself.

The two countries have also vied for influence in the South Pacific, where China has doled out cash and sought to build influence in small but strategically located island states.

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The United States and Australia suspect China of trying to establish a military presence in the South Pacific, something that would up-end the military balance in the region.

Canberra reacted with thinly veiled panic when it was revealed China had inked a secretive security deal with the Solomon Islands, allowing the deployment of Chinese security personnel less than 2,000 kilometres north-east of Australia.

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