How will Albanese's 'straight talks' with China affect relations?

Editor's note: Daryl Guppy, a special commentator for CGTN, is an international financial technical analysis expert who has provided weekly Shanghai Index analysis for mainland Chinese media for more than a decade. Guppy appears regularly on CNBC Asia and is known as "the Chart Man." He is a former national board member of the Australia China Business Council. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Following his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This is the first visit to China by an Australian prime minister in seven years. There are high expectations surrounding his visit, but these may need to be tempered in light of his meeting with President Biden, which was the ninth time the leaders have met in 16 months.

Over the past decade, Australia has been perceived by many as either blindly following U.S. policy on China, or acting in anticipation of what Australia believes America's policy will be. For many years, the approach involved a loud scolding of China, but under the new Australian government, diplomacy has been restored and calm has returned to the day-to-day relationship.

Albanese's visit to Washington was all about reaffirming Australia's commitment to AUKUS and their purchase of nuclear-powered submarines designed to thwart China's activity in the South China Sea. Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles is actively integrating the Australian military into the United States command structure and embedding American advisors into Australia's defense structure.

His meeting with President Biden allowed Prime Minister Albanese to clearly lay out his views on China and the role that he sees China playing in global endeavors. Albanese noted that China wants to change the global rules. The observation is correct to some extent.

It is not appropriate for China to be excluded from some of the organizations that establish these global rules. Some of the global "rules of the road" as President Biden describes them are no longer fit for purpose because they were designed for a different global environment. They do not acknowledge the rise of China, nor the role that it must play in creating an evolving global order.

And even then, both Albanese and Biden wanted to obtain the right to interfere in the affairs of China's Taiwan and Xinjiang. Immediately prior to his visit, Prime Minister Albanese has explicitly noted that he will engage in "straight talks" with China. He said he wants to create a relationship of "no surprises" with China so his visit will include frank exchanges which he believes symbolizes a shift to normalized relations.

The rigid policy lockstep with the United States does not mean that advances in the Australia-China relationship cannot be achieved. Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian has been diligent in his efforts to bring about an improvement in the relationship. This has also been mirrored by the Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong. The result of these efforts is the Xi-Albanese meeting at the sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai.

What is important about the meeting with President Xi and Prime Minister Albanese is the very fact that it is taking place. It signals a resumption of a cordial relationship and opens the path to further diplomatic progress across a range of issues. These are not issues of grand strategy, but irritants and bumps in the trade relationship. It is important to recognize that this is a trade relationship that provides the essential foundations underpinning Australia's economic prosperity.

Australia likes to see the relationship in terms of it being indispensable to China, particularly in terms of the supply of iron ore. It is a tenuous assumption because as with any disrupted market and trade relationships, there are always alternative suppliers. Trade difficulties and disruptions make alternatives more attractive. Just as Australia and others have talked about diversifying supply chains, so too has China.

China is the most significant of Australia's trade partners in terms of both imports and exports, and it is a welcome change to see the development of a cordial relationship. The meeting at the CIIE trade exhibition is an appropriate symbol of what Albanese means by resetting the Australia-China relationship. However, it may be an error to believe that cordiality reflects a significant change in the underlying relationship that increasingly tethers Australia to the United States and its policy towards China.

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