Xi spoke warmly of the fact that he’d visited every state in Australia in his meeting with Albanese.Credit:James Brickwood
Xi Jinping hosted the prime minister of Australia for a friendly chat. Three years after imposing a total ban on political contact with Australia,it was China that instituted the rapprochement.
Remember how the AUKUS security agreement was “destabilising” and a reckless act of nuclear proliferation,according to Beijing? Xi made no mention of it,according to Anthony Albanese.
And the bans on more than $20 billion worth of Australian products,a blatant act of economic coercion? Some have been quietly relaxed over the months as China discovered that it needed Australian coal and wheat to warm and feed its people more than it wanted to hurt Australia.
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We can now expect the remaining boycotts to drop away over the months ahead. “I put forward Australia’s position on trade blockages,” Albanese told reporters.
He noted that it “struck me that both of us talked about how we have highly complementary economies”. We also discovered that Australia’s economy was better able to find alternative export markets than China’s was to find alternative import sources.
Remember that Australia was likened to “chewing gum stuck to the bottom of China’s shoe”,according to a regime propagandist? China was going to find a rock and rub it off,he said.