Opposition Leader Peter Dutton also revealed on Wednesday he had met with Chinese Ambassador Xiao Qian in Canberra,signalling a possible softening in the Coalition’s hawkish position on China.
James Laurenceson,director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney,said a meeting between Xi and Albanese would send an important signal that “Australia is no longer in the dog box” with the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy.
The sight of Xi shaking hands with Albanese would probably help Australia’s ambassador to Beijing secure better access to Chinese officials and open the door to a normalisation of diplomatic and academic exchanges,he said.
Pointing to the resumption of ministerial-level meetings since Labor’s May election victory and Dutton’s meeting with Xiao,Laurenceson said:“It seems like a number of things are coming together and momentum is building towards a possible leaders’ meeting.
“There is a realisation that withXi’s increased concentration of power,what matters is face-to-face time with the leader.”
Richard Maude,executive director of policy at Asia Society Australia,said a leaders’ meeting was looking “more likely now” than it had in many years.
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“If it happens it will be a very significant meeting,coming after a long period in which high-level political contact has been frozen and the bilateral relationship essentially collapsed,” he said.
China has been eager to achieve an improvement in relations ahead of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Australia in December.
Xi’s last official bilateral meeting with an Australian prime minister was with Malcolm Turnbull six years ago,when relations were far less contentious than the current climate.
Xi and Scott Morrison had a brief “pull-aside” conversation at the G20 in Osaka in mid-2019,the last time the pair spoke before Morrison’s election defeat this year.
Dutton said he and Xiao had a “constructive meeting” where they discussed security,trade and human rights issues.
“I will continue to engage in an open and honest dialogue in matters relating to the safety,security and prosperity of our region,” he said.
The Liberal Party suffered amassive backlash in suburbs with large numbers of Chinese-Australian voters at the May federal election,helping sway the result in key marginal seats such as Bennelong,Reid,Parramatta and Chisholm.
Xiao said last month he was frustrated by the slow pace of progress in resetting the China-Australia relationship.
“It seems we’re not moving fast enough,not as fast as China would expect,” he said.
Xi – who has only travelled out of China once since the COVID-19 pandemic began – is also likely to have his first face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden during the summits.
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Michael Wesley,an expert on Australian foreign policy at the University of Melbourne,said:“To have a meeting is better than the situation we have been in for the last few years.”
But he cautioned one meeting could not resolve the deep structural differences between China and Australia,including China’s desire for Australia to keep quiet about human rights issues.
“Both countries have expectations the other side cannot meet,” he said.
Wesley said Xi would be reluctant to remove trade sanctions without extracting concessions from Australia because it would send a message to the world that China’s attempted economic coercion had failed.
Albanese said his presence at the East Asia,ASEAN,G20 and APEC leaders’ summits – to be held across November 11 to 19 – reflects Australia’s status as an “outward-facing nation”.
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