Fifty years ago, Gough Whitlam visited the Temple of Heaven in Beijing as part of an historic visit to China to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. Whitlam’s visit to the Beijing landmark produced an iconic image. In the photograph, the newly elected Australian prime minister is captured with his ear to the circular Echo Wall in the world heritage site. In the background, the Australian prime minister is watched by Stephen Fitzgerald, Australia’s first ambassador to China. Five decades later, Australia has a substantial diplomatic presence in the…
Tag: Australian foreign policy
A new chapter: how China sees Albanese’s ‘ice-breaking’ state visit
It’s a busy time in Beijing – this autumn has already hosted a major Belt and Road forum, international dignitaries, and a security summit. But an upcoming visit by the Australian prime minister has also prompted a flurry of preparations and discussion. Anthony Albanese’s three-day tour of Shanghai and Beijing, the first prime ministerial visit to the country in seven years, is being warmly welcomed. He is expected to meet with the premier, Li Qiang – the host of the official visit – and the president, Xi Jinping, with whom…
Can Anthony Albanese catch the dragon’s tail to defrost and reboot Australia-China relations? | Katharine Murphy
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…
The PM is heading to China and the relationship with Beijing has thawed. But will trade ever return to normal?
Anthony Albanese’s upcoming China visit will be the first by an Australian prime minister since Malcolm Turnbull in 2016. Much of the media attention will be on irritants in the relationship, such as the four-year detention of the Australian writer Yang Hengjun and rising tensions in the South China Sea. But economic ties will also feature highly, with the prime minister scheduled to attend the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. How important is two-way trade? China dwarfs all other nations when it comes to Australia’s trade, accounting for almost…
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…
Australia’s support to Pacific surges as China focuses on ‘friendly’ states, aid map shows
Australia dramatically increased its overall support to the Pacific in 2021, while Beijing is targeting its development financing to “the most China-friendly Pacific island states”, the latest Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map shows. The map, released on Tuesday, also revealed that at a time of elevated debt sustainability risks in the Pacific, Australia has become the leading source of loans and contributed to a surge in infrastructure support. “Australia looks set to become the region’s dominant infrastructure financier, having committed an additional $780m in new projects,” the Lowy Institute research…
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…
Extradition hearing for Australian accused of training Chinese pilots delayed for secret documents bid
An Australian former fighter pilot accused of breaking an arms embargo by training Chinese military pilots wants access to classified government documents to demonstrate that a US request to extradite him is politically motivated, his lawyer has said. Daniel Duggan, who became an Australian citizen in 2012, is accused of breaching US arms trafficking laws by training Chinese pilots while working at a South African flight school in the early 2010s. Duggan faces up to 60 years in prison if he is convicted. A November court date had been set…
Anthony Albanese urged to halt Daniel Duggan’s US extradition during meeting with president
Showing that their home-baked cake had made it safely to school was important in itself, but the Duggan family had little inkling of the happy snap’s broader significance. The photograph of Daniel Duggan with his kids outside their country New South Wales school captured one of his last moments of freedom. “That (cake photo) is the last photo of Dan with us,” his wife, Saffrine, said, ahead of Saturday, the day which marks a year since her husband was arrested. “Every photo that I take or have since, there is…