Early this morning Trade Minister Don Farrell boarded a plane which will carry him to Beijing for a series of potentially crucial meetings with his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao and other top officials.
He's only the second senior Australian Minister to travel to China since last June, when Beijing lifted a diplomatic freeze which effectively ended all high-level political contact between the two countries for almost three years.
Since then, China has also slowly eased some of the trade barriers it slapped on Australian goods when the relationship hit its nadir in 2020.
But heavy sanctions still remain on several key Australian exports worth billions of dollars.
So, where is Australia's most important trading relationship sitting right now?
What are the chances of the remaining trade barriers being lifted?
And what's next for both countries as they move to slowly rebuild ties?
Where do we sit right now?
China reopened top-level dialogue with Australia within weeks of Labor seizing power last May, in a clear sign that Beijing was looking for a circuit breaker to reset the relationship with the new federal government.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles both sat down with their counterparts, and then last November Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali, sending a crucial signal to the entire Chinese government and bureaucracy.
The diplomatic thaw was important, but talking is only the first step towards improving ties.
Nobody is pretending the bitter three years which preceded it didn't permanently damage the relationship.
As Foreign Minister Penny Wong says, the relationship can't just magically return to the halcyon days of the early 2010s.
China's government has become more intolerant and authoritarian under Xi Jinping, and it's increasingly clear just how deep the differences between Beijing and Canberra run.
China and Australia are locked in an arm wrestle for influence in the Pacific, and have very different visions of what the regional order should look like, as Beijing's military power continues to grow.
China has done everything possible to sink Australia's push to build nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS pact, while Canberra remains deeply worried about Beijing's cyber intrusions and political interference campaigns in Australia.
But the Chinese and Australian economies remain highly complementary. In other words, consumers and businesses in both countries want to buy things made, mined, farmed and sold by the other.
This offers an obvious opportunity. It makes sense for Australia, as it tries to "stabilise" the relationship, to try to make headway on the economic front by unwinding some of the trade barriers thrown up by Beijing in 2020 — sometimes to the dismay of its own consumers and businesses.
And there's another clear benefit here as well, because lifting those barriers would also obviously help the Australian farmers, wine makers and fishermen who are still hurting because of those sanctions.
What's happening with those trade barriers?
While many of the Australian products hit with trade barriers or sanctions are still effectively locked out of the Chinese market, there have been some signs that Beijing is willing to (very gradually) start letting some other Australian exports back in.
Australian coal exports to China resumed earlier this year, and a small number of other products hit with informal sanctions have found their way back as well.
Most significantly, the two countries announced last month they'd reached an agreement which could potentially end a long-running dispute over China's crippling tariffs on Australian barley.
Under the deal, Australia agreed to end its appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO), while China said it would conduct a quickfire review of the tariffs — one that Canberra hopes (or expects) will see them quietly dumped.
In a statement announcing his visit to Beijing, Trade Minister Don Farrell said Australia was "pleased" there had been "several positive trade developments, including the resumption of coal, cotton, and copper trade, and China's agreement to undertake an expedited review of duties on Australian barley."
The government hopes if the barley tariffs are dropped, then a similar process might be used to resolve a separate WTO dispute over deeply damaging Chinese tariffs on Australian wine.
At this stage, Australia is pressing on with the wine appeal, with an initial result anticipated by Christmas.
Still, much like the barley farmers, wine producers would likely prefer Australia to take an off-ramp if the government can negotiate an agreement which allows the trade to resume more quickly.
It's worth remembering that there's still a long way to go. There's no guarantee China will actually back down on barley, despite the cautious optimism growing in Canberra.
But in his statement, Senator Farrell makes it clear that his aim is to get Beijing to withdraw all sanctions and trade barriers, both official and unofficial.
"During my visit I will be advocating strongly for the full resumption of unimpeded Australian exports to China — for all sectors — to the benefit of both countries and in the interests of Australian exporters and producers," he said.
In the meantime, the barley and wine industries will just have to wait and see what happens.
Movements in the grey zone
While there's a heavy focus on the big WTO cases over Australian barley and wine, it's also worth keeping a close eye on what happens to other industries hit with "informal" trade bans or barriers.
Earlier this year, there was increasing speculation that the $700 million rock lobster trade between Australia and China could soon be revived in the wake of an undeclared ban imposed by Beijing in 2020.
In February, Senator Farrell told the ABC that a recent application to trade fresh lobsters from Australia was not rejected by Beijing authorities, raising hopes in the industry that it was on the cusp of a breakthrough.
But so far there's been little movement. Some lobsters are still flowing into China through grey and black market back channels, but there's no sign yet that the undeclared ban has been lifted.
It might also be worth watching closely what happens to Australian meatworks which were banned from trading with China, but which might be on the cusp of resuming a trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Of approximately 35 Australian abattoirs licensed to trade with China, 11 have been blacklisted by Beijing over the past few years.
It began in May 2020, when in the days after announcing tariffs on Australian barley, China suspended imports from four Australian meatworks; Kilcoy Pastoral Company, two JBS owned plants near Toowoomba and Dinmore, and the NSW Northern Cooperative Meat Company at Casino.
Queensland abattoirs John Dee, Meramist and Australian Country Choice followed, with Beijing blaming mislabelling and meat contamination for the suspensions.
Two Victorian abattoirs – Australian Lamb Company at Colac and JBS Brooklyn were delisted from selling meat to China when workers contracted COVID-19.
Teys Australia's Naracoorte abattoir was also added to the suspensions list for reasons related to COVID-19.
That doesn't mean the trade has stopped, far from it. Plenty of meatworks have remained unaffected by the trade-freeze, and China has remained one of Australia's largest and most valuable markets for red meat throughout the disruption.
But if the meatworks hit by the trade blocks are permitted to resume, they'd likely commence sales quickly, eager to resume the valuable trade.
And if that happens shortly after Senator Farrell's trip, it might be another sign that the trade turmoil between China and Australia might soon be over.
At least for now.
