Jabarekspres.com- CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday he would ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to lift billions of dollars in trade barriers in the event that the two leaders hold their first bilateral meeting.
Both leaders will attend a Group of 20 meeting in Indonesia and then an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Thailand next week.
Albanese was speaking in Sydney before departing Australia on Friday for an East Asia Summit in Cambodia, which Xi will not attend.
A face-to-face meeting between the Chinese and Australian leaders would mark a major reset in a bilateral relationship that plumbed new depths under the nine-year rule of Australia’s previous conservative government.
Beijing had banned minister-to-minister contacts and imposed a series of official and unofficial trade barriers on products including wine, coal, beef, seafood and barley in recent years that cost Australian exporters 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.
Albanese said a meeting with Xi was “not locked in at this point in time.”
“We obviously will be attending the same conferences, or at least two of them (G-20 and APEC) over the next nine days. And I would welcome a meeting if it occurs over that time,” Albanese said.
Xi had bilateral meetings scheduled with U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Senegalese President Macky Sall, Argentine President Alberto Fernández as well as the two summit hosts, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Friday in Beijing.
Biden’s appointment with Xi on Monday will be their first face-to-face meeting since the Amercian became president in January 2021, the White House confirmed.
While Albanese was not mentioned, Zhao said Xi would schedule more meetings with world leaders “upon request.”
Albanese said China lifting economic sanctions was his first priority in returning to normal relations.
