Whether Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will visit China in 2023 remains uncertain, but the odds are favourable. Beijing has issued an invitation andAlbanesesaid that the trip remains likely. Foreign MinisterPenny Wong has confirmedthat Canberra would look to make sure that a visit can occur. But there remain two factors that might derail a visit.

First, there remain unresolved bilateral disputes, including trade restrictions affecting Australian barley, lobster and wine, as well as the ongoing detention of Australian citizens like journalist Cheng Lei. Repurposing a talking point used with vigour by Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs,Wong has said that these disputes work against creating the positive atmosphere that would be conducive to a successful leader visit.

Second, there are bureaucratic challenges to overcome. These include the public disappearance of Chinese Foreign MinisterQin Gangwho was scheduled to visit Australia in late July. Qins visit would have likely furthered preparations for Albaneses trip to China. There is also the difficulty of the Australian embassy in Beijing coordinating a prime ministerial visit when the current ambassadorGraham Fletcherfinishes his posting in August 2023 and his successor has yet to be announced.

Will he or wont he aside, a more fundamental question is what level of ambition a prime ministerial visit could realistically target.

In late 1996, former Australian prime minister John Howard was able to overcome an earlier period of bilateral tension by settling on a framework for handling the relationship with his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin. This set up his own first and highly successful visit to Beijing just a few months later.

The HowardJiang framework recognised the two countries differences but agreed to focus on their mutual interests. Howard also assured Jiang that whatever Washington had in mind, Canberra was not trying to contain China, and more broadly, the alliance between Australia and the United States wasnot in any waydirected at China.

Re-committing to important common interests also constituted the backbone of a 2009 AustraliaChinajoint statementthat sought to move the relationship on from a year described by then-Australian ambassador to ChinaGeoff Rabyas our collective annus horribilis.

A high-ambition Albanese visit would require Beijing to live up to the 2009 joint statements commitment to conduct mutually beneficial trade in accordance with market principles.

As for Canberra, seeking to anchor a US presence in the region to provide strategic balance is one thing. Butjoining a Washington-led attemptto contain Chinas rise is another thing entirely.

Eschewing containment would hardly represent an Australian concession. Former Australian prime ministerScott Morrisoninsisted in 2020 that Chinas economic success was a good thing for Australia and juxtaposed his governments position with that of the United States, saying not all countries have that view, and some countries are in strategic competition with China. Australia is not one of those.

While theBiden administrationclaims that its policies do not amount to containment, this assessment is disputed by informed US analysts. It was not Tokyo, Seoul or The Hague that lobbied Washington to cut off Chinas access to advanced semi-conductors in October 2022. Rather, it took a more than a year of campaigning by the Biden administration to forge an agreement, the details of which remain unclear.

Australia is not a noted producer of high-tech goods. But there havebeen suggestionsthat Canberra may cut Chinese investors off from developing projects in Australias critical minerals sector. ACritical Minerals Strategyreleased by the Australian government in June 2023 emphasised bolstering supply chain resilience by increasing investment from likeminded partners. The partners listed included the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, Korea and India. But not China.

In 2023, severalinvestment proposalsin Australias critical minerals sector connected toChinese interestswere blocked on the grounds that they were contrary to the national interest.

Given that Chinese industrial supply chains are utterly dependent on imported raw materials, includingAustralian iron ore and lithium, a blanket ban on Chinese companies taking stakes in mine sites would unsurprisingly be viewed dimly in Beijing. An alternative for Canberra is to block only those proposed investments with clear national security sensitivities or to add conditions to approvals, such as mandating that any output produced is made available on global markets.

Locking China out of regional economic integration initiatives like the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would also be inconsistent with an approach eschewing containment. It would, of course, be appropriate to insist that Beijing must commit to the CPTPPs high standards if it wishes to be considered for membership and to disabuse any notion in Beijing that it could veto another applicant, such as Taiwan, from joining.

Minister Wong is right to flag that Beijing has a responsibility for creating many of the positive circumstances that would set up asuccessful visit by Prime Minister Albanese. But Canberra must also decide whether to aim high or low.

First published in the EASTASIAFORUM August 3, 2023