23/10 Indices, page-8

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would visit China and meet with Xi Jinping, another sign of a thaw in the countries’ once-icy relations.

Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced on Sunday that he would visit China early next month, meeting with its top leader, Xi Jinping. Such a visit would be the first by an Australian leader since 2016 and another sign of easing tensions between the two nations, along with the recent release of a detained Australian journalist and a breakthrough on talks aimed at removing staggering tariffs on Australian wine that China imposed three years ago.

China is Australia’s biggest overseas market, with exports and services to China forming nearly one-third of Australia’s overall trade. But that relationship suffered a heavy blow in April 2020, after the prime minister at the time, Scott Morrison, called for an independent investigation into the origin of Covid-19. In retaliation for what it called “political games” intended to assign blame for the pandemic, Beijing imposed punitive tariffs on Australian barley, beef, cotton, coal and wine.

In 2019, Australia had shipped wine with a value of $800 million to China; sales there dropped 97 percent in the first year after tariffs were imposed. As storage tanks overflowed, farmers faced a choice between selling grapes at a huge loss or keeping costs to a minimum and not harvesting.