China and Australia’s trade ministers will hold their first in-person economic dialog since 2019 on Friday as Canberra hopes to negotiate an end to sanctions on billions of dollars worth of its agricultural exports.
Australia’s top trade official Don Farrell touched down in Beijing a day earlier, marking the second major visit by an Australian minister to China since the two nations began repairing ties in the wake of the election of a center-left Labor government a year ago.
Speaking shortly after his arrival, Farrell said he was in Beijing to make progress in “stabilizing our trading relationship with China.” Farrell will meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao on Friday afternoon for talks, with the focus of normalizing the economic relationship.
While China is Australia’s largest trading partner by a wide margin, relations between the two began to deteriorate in 2017 amid growing concerns in Canberra over foreign interference in its domestic politics. Tensions came to a head in April 2020 when then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in Wuhan.
That infuriated Beijing and prompted Chinese authorities to take punitive action on a range of Australian exports including coal, barley and wine. The key iron ore trade remained untouched by the dispute.
Since the election of the Labor government, relations have steadily warmed between Canberra and Beijing. Imports of Australian coal have resumed in Chinese ports, while Beijing announced in April it would be holding a review into tariffs placed on barley imports.
Australia Optimistic China to End Barley, Wine Tariffs This Year
In return, Australia announced it would temporarily pause its case against China in the World Trade Organization.
Speaking ahead of his visit, Farrell said he was hopeful of resolving both the barley and wine tariffs by the end of 2023, while Australia is also keen to remove the remaining barriers on other agricultural exports including beef, dairy and lobsters.
China wants to have access to greater opportunities to invest in Australia, a sensitive issue given that Canberra is closely tied to the US on security and relations between Beijing and Washington are extremely strained.