Australian Foreign Minister Visits China: 

Both Australia and China announced that Australian Foreign Minister Huang Yingxian was invited to visit China for two days on Tuesday (December 20, 2022) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. She will be the first Australian government minister to visit China since 2019, suggesting that tensions between the two countries that have lasted for years may be coming out of the trough.




 Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement Monday that "Australia seeks to develop a stable relationship with China." We will work with China where we can cooperate, remain divided on what must be opposed, and engage with China in the national interest.”

On the same day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said that China hopes that through the Australian Foreign Minister's visit to China, China will further implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries when they met in Bali, Indonesia, last month, and strengthen dialogue, expand cooperation, manage differences, and push bilateral relations back to the right track with the principles of mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win results, and seeking common ground while reserving differences.

The former government led by the Australian Liberal Party called on the international community to investigate the source of the new coronavirus and responded to the US call to restrict the participation of Chinese network equipment giant Huawei in Australia's 5G network construction. Beijing was so upset that it imposed sweeping trade sanctions and a diplomatic boycott on Australia and arrested two Chinese-Australian citizens on espionage charges.

Albanese's Labour government has sought to improve relations with China since coming to power in May. Mr. Albanese, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Indonesia in November, called the 30-minute meeting "successful," "positive" and "constructive," but said it was unrealistic to expect the talks to immediately resolve major and multifaceted differences between the two countries.

Australia demanded that China lift $13 billion worth of trade sanctions and release Chinese Australian citizens such as Cheng Lei, while China sought Australia to adopt a more "independent" foreign policy and not cooperate with the United States to promote its Indo-Pacific strategy.