Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong arrived in Beijing on December 21, 2022, and no sooner had she landed in the city than she posted on her personal Twitter account, "We have much to discuss."

Wong made a two-day visit at the invitation of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and participated in the Sixth China-Australia Foreign and Strategic Dialogue.

According to the joint statement issued after the dialogue in Beijing, the two sides agreed to maintain high-level engagement, and to commence or restart their dialogue in areas including bilateral relations, trade and economic issues, consular affairs, climate change, defense and regional and international issues.

They also agreed to support people-to-people exchanges, including the 1.5 Track High-Level Dialogue, the China-Australia CEO Roundtable and visits by bilateral business delegations.

This was the first trip to China by an Australian minister in more than three years, and it coincided with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

On December 21, President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with Australian Governor General David Hurley and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to celebrate the event.

Xi said he attaches great importance to the development of China-Australia relations, and is ready to work with Australia to take the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations as an opportunity to renew commitment to the principles of mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win results, and to promote the sustainable development of the China-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership to the continued benefit of both countries and peoples.

Albanese said he firmly believes a stable Australia-China relationship is in line with the interests of both countries, and he looks forward to continuing to work with China to further develop the Australia-China comprehensive strategic partnership based on mutual respect and benefit.

"The return to power of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) bodes well for the China-Australia relationship. The congratulatory messages exchanged by both leaders and the dialogue between the foreign ministers are recognized as positive signs by both countries and the wider world," Li Jianjun, Director of the Australian Studies Center at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and Secretary General of the Chinese Association for Australian Studies, told Beijing Review.

A whirlwind visit

Australia established diplomatic ties with China under the Gough Whitlam-headed ALP administration in 1972 following a bold outreach Whitlam executed the year before.

Back in 1971, a time when engaging with China was regarded by many in Australia as mad, and when doing so could mean a party's loss in the upcoming 1972 election, Whitlam, the then opposition leader, took up the challenge to visit the country at great risk to his own and his party's political fortunes.

"His decision was calculated and consistent with ALP policy since 1955 to recognize Beijing… He saw this as rational, logical and in the nation's interests," Stephen FitzGerald, China adviser to Whitlam and Australia's first ambassador to China from 1973-76, wrote in an opinion piece published by the Australian Financial Review on July 1, 2021.

A delegation led by Whitlam traveled to Beijing and stayed two weeks, with the real mission of meeting Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

"We drove across the empty Beijing streets to the Great Hall of the People, went up the stairs, through dimly lit corridors into a room, and Zhou Enlai was standing there," FitzGerald told the BBC in a December 2022 interview.

"The Chinese had been demonized as a cross between red devils and yellow perils—almost as if they had horns. And here was this most sophisticated and civilized, polite and diplomatic, courteous, charming person," he added as he reminisced about the meeting.

Only four days after Whitlam left China, U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger followed on his heels to meet with Zhou in secret, which helped lay the groundwork for President Richard Nixon's ice-breaking China visit in 1972. Whitlam had been fortunate, in that news of Kissinger's visit helped galvanize Australian political and public support for his own visit. However, this good fortune was founded on his courage, judgment and statecraft, FitzGerald said in his Australian Financial Review piece.

In 1972, just days after the ALP won the federal election, Whitlam negotiated an agreement to establish diplomatic ties with China.

"Gough Whitlam's act of vision and ambition recognized China's global significance and it also spoke for a greater sense of maturity and independence in Australia's foreign policy," Albanese said in his piece published in The Australian on December 20, 2022.

Decades later, after the China-Australia relationship had deteriorated due to a series of miscalculations by the administrations led by Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison of the Liberal Party, Albanese took office after winning the 2022 federal election and, like Whitlam, he tries to seek a stabilized bilateral relationship that is mutually beneficial.

Deepening ties

"Even if there was a spillover from politics to economy [in Australia], last year the two-way trade between Australia and China actually hit a record high in both directions, export and import," James Laurenceson, Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, said in a dialogue on bilateral economic relations on December 21. The event was hosted by the BFSU Australian Studies Center, which was founded in 1983, to celebrate the 50th anniversary.

Bilateral trade volume had surged from less than $100 million in 1972 to over $207 billion in 2021, accounting for 34.2 percent of Australia's import-export total, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Over the past 50 years, strong academic and people-to-people ties between China and Australia have also been established. There are now roughly 40 registered Australian studies centers across China. The 18th International Conference of Australian Studies in China (ICASC), a conference convened biennially since 1988, took place on November 19-20.

The BFSU Australian Studies Center hosted another dialogue themed China-Australia People-to-People Exchanges: Through the Lens of Culture and History on December 21. It was joined by David Walker, an Australian historian and a fellow with the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Li Yao, a Chinese writer who has translated almost 40 Australian books into Chinese.

They shared how they became good friends despite their vastly contrasting upbringings, and why it was necessary to write their joint memoir Happy Together: Bridging the Australia-China Divide.

"It tells a story of an Australian helping a Chinese trace his roots in China," Li Yao quipped.

As the title suggests, people-to-people engagement never fails to bridge cultural and social divides. This epitomizes both sides' efforts in seeking common ground while navigating differences wisely, he added.

An Asia-Pacific community

Although China and Australia have gotten along well with each other for most of the past five decades, their relationship hit a low in 2018 when Australia banned Chinese firms Huawei Technologies and ZTE from its 5G network before undertaking a series of hostile moves against China in the realms of geopolitics, academia and public health, to name a few, in the following years.

The thawing of relations began in November 2022, when Xi met Albanese on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Bali. They agreed to bring ties back to the right track by overcoming differences and engaging in dialogue.

Australian leaders could find a way to better manage relations with China and the U.S. at the same time, based on a more independent decision-making, according to Chen Hong, Director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University .

"Although Australia is culturally, ideologically and ethnically closer to North America and Europe, it's located in the Asia-Pacific region," he told Global Times on December 20. "Therefore, Australia also identifies as an Asia-Pacific country rather than a purely Western country. Australia's ties with regional neighbors like China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations members will impact its interests more directly than its ties with the U.S.," he noted.

"The bilateral ties are likely to be repaired, but it's not an easy task. Australia's China policy still remains unchanged under the administration of Albanese," Li Jianjun said.

"In seeking stabilized and mutually beneficial ties, China and Australia need to strengthen dialogue, seek common ground while putting differences aside, and respect each other's core values and interests," he concluded. 

(Print Edition Title: Unfreeze and Reset)

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson

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