Prime Minister Anthony Albanese believes securing face time with Chinese President Xi Jinping is a sign of success, after six years in the diplomatic freezer.
Mr Albanese and Mr Xi will hold talks on Tuesday afternoon at the G20 summit in Bali – the first time an Australian Prime Minister has managed to hold a formal meeting with the Chinese President since Malcolm Turnbull in 2016.
Since then, the relationship between Beijing and Canberra has soured. For years, Australian ministers struggled to get phone calls with their Chinese counterparts, let alone hold talks in person.
After addressing business leaders in Bali, Mr Albanese was asked how he would gauge the success of the meeting with Mr Xi.
"Having the meeting is a successful outcome," he remarked.
"For six years, we have not had any dialogue, and it is not in Australia's interest to not have dialogue with our major trading partner."
No 'red lines' rhetoric
On Sunday, Mr Albanese held talks with US President Joe Biden in Phnom Penh – 24 hours before Mr Biden and Mr Xi met in Indonesia.
Ahead of his talks, Mr Biden referred to "red lines" in the US-China relationship – in other words, areas neither country would concede ground on in their power struggle.
Australia's Prime Minister was not comfortable with such rhetoric.
"I use my own language, rather than anybody else's," Mr Albanese said.
"What I've said is that we need to cooperate with China, where we can, we'll disagree where we must, but will act and have dialogue in our national interest.
"Dialogue is always constructive."
China and Australia's relationship is vastly different in 2022 compared to 2016.
Since then, Chinese telco Huawei has been blocked from access to Australia's 5G network, and Beijing has imposed tough trade tariffs on lucrative Australian products.
China's ambition in the South China Sea and the Pacific has been widely debated, and Australia's repeatedly raised concerns about human rights violations and the treatment of its citizens in Chinese jails.
Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun
Journalist Cheng Lei has been behind bars in China for two years, accused of providing state secrets to foreigners.
"I'm sure that PM Albanese and President Xi have a range of things to talk about, and I certainly hope that Lei's case is one of those topics, Ms Cheng's partner Nick Coyle told the ABC.
"The government has done a great job advocating for her, and I'm sure they'll continue to do that.
"As I've said on a number of occasions previously, all I hope for, all her family hopes for is a compassionate and speedy resolution to the situation that we've got at the moment."
Mr Albanese would not comment on whether he would raise her case, or that of imprisoned writer Yang Hengjun.
"I will be reporting on everything that is raised tomorrow," he said.
"I'm not going to foreshadow all the things we're going to raise prior to the meeting."
Additional reporting by East Asia Correspondent Bill Birtles
