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(Bloomberg) — Australia looks forward to deepening practical cooperation and promoting sustained development of bilateral relations with China, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Sunday in Shanghai.
The Australian leader’s comments were carried in a statement posted on the Shanghai local government’s official Wechat account.
Canberra hopes to further strengthen economic and trade cooperation and jointly promote green and low-carbon development, Albanese told Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Jining. Shanghai welcomes Australian companies to invest in the city, China’s second largest, Chen said.
“We know the one in four of Australia’s jobs depends upon free and fair trade. And our biggest export partner is China,” Albanese said in a video carried on the Global Times’ official Wechat account. “Engaging with China is in our interests to build a stable and secure region.”
Albanese was visiting China for the first time since being re-elected in a landslide in May. He’s trying to balance an increasingly confrontational relationship between the US and China — respectively, Australia’s historic security ally and its biggest trading partner.
He also needs to navigate a more complicated regional security environment as China becomes more assertive in the Asia-Pacific. China in February conducted live-fire naval exercises in the Tasman Sea off Australia’s east coast, which Albanese said at the time was within international law but for which he would have liked more notice.
The prime minister will visit through Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu, describing the visit as a “further demonstration of the good relations” between the nations. China’s economic heft is significant given it takes a quarter of Australia’s exports, from iron ore to lobsters and wine.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong warned on Thursday about “the worrying pace of China’s nuclear and conventional military build up,” highlighting that Beijing aims to change the balance of power in the region.
A delegation of corporate executives — including from Macquarie Bank Ltd. and HSBC Holdings Plc’s Australia arm, as well as Fortescue Ltd., BlueScope Steel Ltd., Rio Tinto Ltd. and BHP Group Ltd is traveling with Albanese. His visit will includes a CEO round table in Beijing on Tuesday and an international supply chain Expo that China is hosting.
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