Five decades ago, almost to the day, Gough Whitlam raised a brimming glass to the party chairman Mao Zedong and the Chinese premier Zhou En-lai after delivering a speech at a welcome banquet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. This story might be new to you, so let’s step through the history. Whitlam went to China in 1971, while he was still opposition leader – ahead of Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking official visit in 1972. Completely unaware of Nixon’s impending diplomatic overture, the then Australian prime minister Bill…
Tag: Anthony Albanese
Albanese to raise human rights and trade with Xi in first China visit by Australian PM since 2016
Anthony Albanese will raise human rights, trade and Australia’s concerns about the militarisation of the South China Sea when he meets Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday during the first visit to China by an Australian prime minister since 2016. Albanese has signalled he intends to raise the plight of the Australian writer Yang Hengjun, who has been detained for more than four years in China. Ahead of his departure, the prime minister also called on the Chinese government to issue visas to Australian journalists, allowing them to report once…
Australia news live: fires in Queensland and NSW threaten homes amid strong winds, high temperatures
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Yang Hengjun’s family urges Albanese to negotiate with China for jailed Australian writer’s release
The children of jailed Australian writer Yang Hengjun, detained for more than four years in China, have pleaded with Anthony Albanese to negotiate his release in Beijing this week, telling the prime minister his situation is critical and their father risks “being left to die”. The writer and avowed democracy activist was arrested in January 2019 and charged with espionage. Yang has collapsed in prison and been told he has a 10cm cyst growing on his kidney, his sons said in a letter to Albanese, emphasising there was “a narrow…
White House meeting: key takeaways from Anthony Albanese’s visit to Washington
Anthony Albanese is in the final stages of an official visit to Washington. He wanted to engage the president of the United States, Joe Biden, on a range of policy fronts during the four-day trip. Here are the key takeaways from the visit. Trouble with nuclear submarines When the prime minister arrived in Washington, dysfunction in the legislature was on full display. The House of Representatives had been paralysed for three weeks because there was no speaker. This chaos affects the biggest defence project in Australia’s history. The Biden administration…
Aukus will ‘get done’ despite jitters in Congress, Biden tells Albanese at White House meeting
Joe Biden has played down congressional jitters over the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal and has revealed he assured Xi Jinping that the countries involved are not aiming to “surround China”. The US president welcomed the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to the White House and insisted he was “confident that we’re going to be able to get the money for Aukus because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest”. “So the question is not if, but when,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Albanese in the rose garden on Wednesday…
Australia rules out cancelling Chinese company’s lease over Port of Darwin
Australia is moving to repair ties with China ahead of Anthony Albanese’s trip to Beijing, ruling out cancelling a Chinese company’s lease over the strategically important Port of Darwin. The move, which is likely to be welcomed by the Chinese government, comes as Australia also prepares to scrap tariffs on imports of Chinese wind towers, potentially defusing one of Beijing’s trade complaints. The Australian government announced on Friday afternoon that the Landbridge Group would be allowed to continue with its long-term lease over the Port of Darwin. China has long…
Australia politics live: Marles warns of risks in ‘grave’ China clash; the ‘fables’ spread by the no campaign
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Australia politics live: no vote came from ‘grievance camp’, Labor MP says; trade minister to urge China to review wine tariffs
From 1h ago No vote came from ‘grievance camp’, Labor MP says Marion Scrymgour: With the failure of the referendum, we are stuck with a Constitution built on a deliberate plan for exclusion and discrimination by way of race, which still retains a race power rather than a mechanism for recognising the special relationship the commonwealth government must have with its First People as a result of the way this continent was colonised. That is something which we are all going to have to accept and do our best to…
Albanese’s China trip suggests a smoother relationship rather than a cosy one
In a far cry from Henry Kissinger’s secret trips to China in the 1970s, Anthony Albanese’s planned travel to the country has been an open secret for months. Still, the Australian prime minister’s confirmation this week that he had accepted an invitation to fly to Beijing is another key step in his government’s efforts to “stabilise” a relationship that hit rock bottom in 2020. It also reflects a key calculation of Albanese’s team: that dialogue with a major power such as China, in and of itself, is of value. On…