China, Australia to restart annual meetings as trade resumes

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing on Tuesday, in what Albanese said was an annual leaders’ meeting that would continue as relations between the trading partners stabilised.
Albanese is in China on the first visit by an Australian leader in seven years, after a diplomatic dispute had put a halt to once-annual meetings of leaders.
President Xi Jinping said on Monday stable ties between China and Australia served each other’s interests and both should expand their cooperation, sending a clear signal that China was ready to move on from recent tensions.
“The fact that these meetings are now going to continue is very important for our relations,” Albanese said in opening remarks to Li at the Great Hall of the People.
China has lifted trade blocks on most Australian exports, that were imposed in 2020 in the wake of Australia’s call for an international investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.