Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has had a brief discussion with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, at a gala dinner for world leaders in Cambodia.
The chat comes amid speculation Mr Albanese could be the first Australian leader in five years to have a formal sit-down meeting with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the upcoming G20 meeting in Indonesia or the APEC summit in Bangkok.
Mr Albanese said the informal discussion was "constructive" and "positive".
"The main area of discussion we had was on the upcoming 50th-year commemoration of Australia's diplomatic relationship with China," he said.
"He reminded me that he had written to me congratulating me on my election and that I had responded to him.
"It was a short engagement. It was constructive."
It has been five years since an Australian prime minister has had a formal meeting with the Chinese president, but Mr Albanese said his door was always open for a meeting with Mr Xi.
"We'll engage constructively with dialogue with countries that wish to engage with us," he said.
"I have said that we should cooperate with China where we can and that's what we're doing."
If the meeting comes off, it would be widely viewed as a turning point in the relationship between China and Australia after years of strained ties.
The situation soured soon after Chinese telco Huawei was blocked from any role in the development of Australia's 5G network, and continued to slide as Beijing imposed trade sanctions on a variety of Australian products.
For a number of years, Australian ministers could not secure phone calls with their Chinese counterparts, let alone face-to-face meetings.
Mr Albanese and Mr Li were seen talking as they arrived at the dinner, hosted by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, for dignitaries attending the ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Phnom Penh.
The Prime Minister's Office said Mr Albanese also had discussions with US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Any meeting with the Chinese president in coming days is still to be confirmed.
"If the leaders of our respective countries have a meeting then that would be positive," Mr Albanese told reporters on Saturday afternoon, ahead of the dinner.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who has met her Chinese counterpart twice since the May election, says "stabilising" the diplomatic relationship is in the interest of both countries.
"It will take time because our differences are not trivial," she will say in a speech to be delivered in Sydney today.
"But … we won't weaponise national security for political purposes.
"We will seek to navigate our differences wisely — something, in fact, we believe both our countries should do."
In her speech, Senator Wong will call on her opposition counterpart Simon Birmingham to "reject the rending of national unity as a craven political tactic" while also sending a message to those within the Labor movement who have questioned the federal government's hardline approach to China.
Senator Wong will say China has changed under Xi Jinping's leadership.
"As China has sought to assert itself in the world, those differences have become harder to manage," she will say.
"The China of today is not the same as the China of the 1970s, or even the 2000s. Some may prefer to pretend otherwise, but President Xi himself has made that clear.
"It is an insult to all Gough [Whitlam] did to prepare us for the future if we act as though we live in a world that has long since passed."
The comments could be interpreted as a veiled swipe at Labor figures, including Paul Keating and Bob Carr, who have both criticised Australia's approach towards China in recent years.
