Albanese meets Xi in Beijing as China hails ‘turnaround’ in ties

Australian Community Media

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spoken to press after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, China. Xi praised Albanese for turning around the relationship between the two countries after a 'setback' under the former Coalition government as the pair kicked off high level talks focused on economic and trade opportunities.

Transcript

00:00My Government's approach to our relationship with China is patient, is calibrated and is

00:07deliberate. And it is aimed at cooperating wherever we can, disagreeing where we must,

00:12but engaging in our national interest. Given that one in four of Australian jobs depends

00:19upon trade, and given that China is overwhelmingly by far the largest trading partner that Australia

00:26has, it is very much in the interests of Australian jobs and the Australian economy to have a positive

00:33and constructive relationship with China. Dialogue is how we advance our interests, how

00:40we manage our differences and we guard against misunderstanding. And the purpose of my visit

00:46here is to advance Australia's interests. President Xi and I agreed that dialogue must

00:52be at the centre of our relationship. We also discussed our economic relationship, which

00:58is critical to Australia. We spoke about the potential for new engagement in areas such as

01:05decarbonisation. That was the subject of the forum that was held yesterday. This afternoon,

01:15I will travel back to the centre of Beijing for meetings with Chairman Zhao of the National

01:25People's Congress, for the annual leaders meeting with Premier Li. We will then have a signing

01:32of various MOUs and then we will have the CEO Roundtable. The fact that senior Australian business

01:40business people, led by the Business Council of Australia have come here to Beijing as well

01:46as were present in Shanghai, and indeed Australian businesses will also be engaged with us in Chengdu,

01:54shows how important the economic relationship is and how the Australian business community regard

02:01this as an important relationship. We will then have, later this evening, a banquet hosted

02:08by Premier Li, but I thank very much President Xi, not just for the bilateral meeting that

02:15we're able to have, but also hosting a banquet lunch there in the Great Hall of the Peoples,

02:22which is an honour, which is bestowed on Australia.

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