Foreign Minister Penny Wong is likely to meet her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi once again this week, in another sign Australia and China are willing to continue negotiations to try and normalise their relationship.
The ABC has been told officials have been trying to organise a meeting between the two foreign ministers on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.
Both ministers will hold a host of similar meetings over coming days.
One source told the ABC that the details of the meeting between Penny Wong and Wang Yi were still being negotiated, but it was likely to go ahead later this week.
If that happens it will be the second meeting in less than 12 weeks between the two ministers, who first sat down together in Bali this July after the G20 foreign ministers meeting.
A second meeting would signal that Beijing is still willing to maintain high-level contact with the Albanese government, even though the two countries have made limited progress on resolving fundamental disagreements since Labor won office in May.
The Albanese government has struck a careful and measured tone with China, and says it has been trying to stabilise the relationship without giving ground on core national interest issues.
The meeting would cover a wide range of difficult and delicately poised disputes.
The federal government has been pressing China over its treatment of jailed Australian journalist Cheng Lei and writer Yang Hengjun.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also repeatedly called on Beijing to remove punitive trade sanctions imposed on a range of Australian goods and products as a first step towards re-establishing goodwill.
Meanwhile China has complained that Australia has been too slow to begin negotiations on its bid to join the 11-nation CP-TPP free trade agreement.
The former Morrison government was privately scathing about China's pitch, arguing it was absurd for Beijing to ask for Australia's support in the wake of its campaign of economic reprisal.
China has also called for Australia to take "concrete" steps to repair the relationship, suggesting it should remove restrictions on Chinese investment, while warning Canberra against speaking out on human rights abuses in Xinjiang or growing cross-Strait tensions.
One source suggested that Penny Wong and Wang Yi would also discuss the delicate issue of how both countries will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Australia recognising the People's Republic of China, which falls in December this year.
'If China engages … we will respond in kind.'
Last week, Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Tim Watts told the Australia China Business Council that both countries had taken initial steps towards establishing a new equilibrium, while stressing Australia would not abandon its national interests.
"We've taken some first steps, but we also recognise this will take time," he said.
"This doesn't mean ignoring the differences between us. But there are areas where we can and should work together."
"If China engages with Australia directly and constructively, we will respond in kind."
Australia's China Ambassador, Graham Fletcher, told the same gathering that China had also taken a more "constructive" tone with Australia since the federal election.
But he stressed both were still negotiating to find "viable parameters within which two quite different countries can interact and get along".
The Asia Society Australia's Executive Director for Policy Richard Maude told the ABC that the prospect of a meeting between Penny Wong and Wang Yi showed China remained interested in pursuing "a less hostile relationship".
"China has remained silent on its motivations, but the opportunity of a new Australian government, the state of its troubled economy and concern about accelerating efforts by US alliance partners and the Quad to balance China's power in the Indo-Pacific could all be factors," he said.
But Mr Maude stressed that while "episodic high-level political dialogue is much better than no dialogue" it was still "a long way short of the more stable relationship the Albanese government seeks".
"The only durable path to more stable ties would require more than China lifting its arbitrary trade actions. China would have to accept that Australia will continue to implement policies it objects to," he said.
"This applies as much to current foreign and domestic policy settings as it does to any number of future decisions, such as the possibility of sanctions against Chinese individuals and entities for human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
"It remains far from clear China is prepared to proceed on such a basis. So the deeply embedded clash of interests and values in the relationship will continue to drag on efforts to repair it."
