As the Albanese government struggles to stay on its political feet, who would have thought the China issue would suddenly insert itself into the campaign, leaving the prime minister looking, at best, flat-footed?
Improving and stabilising what had become a toxic bilateral relationship under Scott Morrison has been one of the Albanese government’s major pluses in its foreign and trade policy.
China has taken off all of the roughly $20 billion in barriers it had enacted on Australian exports. Australian lobsters are back on Chinese menus. And who can forget the PM’s visit to China, when he was lauded as “a handsome boy”.
