China, Australia laud improvement in relations

Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged the steady improvement in China-Australia ties on Thursday, and they expressed the countries' commitment to jointly safeguard peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.

The two prime ministers made the statement during their meeting in Vientiane, Laos, on the sidelines of the leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation.

Li spoke positively about the steady progress in bilateral dialogues and cooperation across various fields as well as the increasingly active people-to-people and cultural exchanges.

China is willing to further enhance mutual understanding with Australia and continue to work hand in hand to build a more mature, stable and fruitful comprehensive strategic partnership in order to deliver more benefits to the people of both countries and make greater contributions to regional and global peace and stability, he said.

Noting that China-Australia relations are essentially characterized by mutual benefit and win-win results, the premier said the country is ready to share development opportunities with Australia.

He expressed Beijing's readiness to continue to strengthen exchanges with Canberra on macroeconomic policies, and expand cooperation in trade and investment, green development, scientific and technological innovation and other fields in a bid to boost bilateral ties.

Li also emphasized China's commitment to promoting reforms on all fronts and expanding high-standard opening-up as well as its efforts to continue to build a market-oriented, world-class business environment governed by a sound legal framework.

China welcomes more Australian enterprises to invest in China, and hopes that Australia will provide a fair, safe, non-discriminatory and predictable business environment for Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in Australia, he said.

Li highlighted that a peaceful, stable and prosperous Asia-Pacific serves the common interests of China, Australia and other countries in the region. Beijing is willing to work together with Canberra to safeguard the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region with concrete actions, he said.

China has been Australia's largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years, with bilateral trade reaching around $230 billion last year. Bilateral relations were severely damaged in the past a few years due to the negative policies adopted by the previous Australian government toward China. The two countries have broken the ice since Albanese assumed office in 2022.

Albanese told Li that his country is willing to further strengthen high-level dialogues and cooperation with China in various fields, and engage in candid communication in the spirit of mutual respect to promote the continuous improvement of bilateral relations.

He said Australia is committed to the one-China principle. Australia is willing to enhance coordination with China in multilateral field and jointly uphold regional and global peace, stability, and prosperity, he added.