Li Qiang, the Chinese Prime Minister, has arrived in Adelaide for a four-day visit to Australia. This is the first time since 2017 that the Chinese number 2 has visited the island continent, and he expressed, as soon as he left the plane, his desire to ease tensions between the two countries, calling even Australian leaders to put their differences aside.
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With our correspondent in Sydney, Grégory Plesse
The visit of Li Qiang was prepared in advance by that of its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, last March. For Beijing, the time has clearly come for reconciliation withAustraliareports our correspondent in Sydney, Grégory Plesse. After years of tension, almost all trade sanctions imposed on Australian producers have been lifted in recent months, and Li Qiang, upon arriving, could not be more complimentary of his hosts, saying that Australia was “ ideally placed to connect east and west”…
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The official position of the Australian Prime Minister is much less conciliatory, the idea being to “cooperate when we can, disagree when necessary, and act in the national interest”. The Labor Party in power in Canberra, while they congratulate themselves on having been able to normalize their relations with their main trading partner, do not fail to point out that they achieved this without bowing to Beijing, nor avoiding angry subjects. .
Thus, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanesewho will receive his Chinese counterpart tomorrow, Monday, in Canberra, has undertaken to discuss with him the case of the Chinese-Australian academic Yang Hengjunarrested in China in 2019, then incarcerated and sentenced to death, as well as the recent clashes between Chinese and Australian soldiers in the South China Sea…
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