Labour leader Albanes, who had just won the Australian election, announced his readiness to travel to Japan for an important meeting.
On the evening of 21 May, the Australian Federal Parliament elections came to an end, and the Labour Party pushed the Liberal-National Party to win the general election, and Albanes will replace Morrison as the new prime minister.
According to Australian media reports, Albanes will be sworn in as Australian prime minister on May 23, and on May 24, he will travel to Tokyo with the new Chinese foreign minister Penny Wong to attend the US-Japan-India-Australia Quad Security Dialogue (Quad) Leaders' Summit.
During the Morrison administration, Australia's foreign policy closely followed that of the United States, and Sino-Australian relations fell to a freezing point. Analysts believe that after Albanes came to power, there will be no major shift in Australia's foreign policy. However, in terms of China policy, the Albanes administration is expected to pay more attention to bilateral cooperation in the fields of economy, trade and climate change than the Morrison administration.
The "Australia-US alliance" ranks first in foreign policy
According to Sky News Australia, Albanes and his team members will be sworn in on May 23.
Among them, Albanes will be sworn in as the 31st prime minister of Australia; Huang Yingxian, a Chinese woman, will be sworn in as foreign minister. In addition, it is expected that key members of the Labour Party such as Mallais, Gallagher and Chalmers will serve in the cabinet positions of Minister of Defence, Minister of Finance and Minister of Finance, respectively.
Albanes will be visiting the next day in office. On May 24, Albanes will travel with Huang Yingxian to Tokyo, Japan, to attend the Leaders' Summit of the Quadripartite Security Dialogue between the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
Albanes is expected to provide a $470 million southeast Asia aid package to the Quartet Security Dialogue Fund to highlight Australia's concerns about the region.
Australian media said that Albanes' move was to tell the leader of the Quartet Security Dialogue that "Australia is a strong partner". Previously, Albanes outlined Labour's foreign policy in the campaign, with the "Australia-US alliance" at the top of the list, followed by participation in regional affairs and support for multilateral dialogue.
On May 22, local time, Australian Prime Minister-designate Albanes appeared in a coffee shop. Figure/IC photo
Xu Liping, a researcher at the Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with the Beijing News that It is expected that Albanes will not make major changes in the fields of US Indo-Pacific strategy and "Australia-US alliance" and will continue some of the policies of the Morrison administration.
According to Agence France-Presse, the "Four-Way Security Dialogue" summit will focus on China issues, including China's influence in the Asia-Pacific region and the security agreement signed between China and the Solomon Islands.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden is visiting Asia. According to Xinhua News Agency, Biden will visit South Korea and Japan from May 20 to May 24, attend the "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue" summit between the United States, Japan, India and Australia, and launch the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework" to promote the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" with strong confrontational colors.
Xinhua pointed out that this is Biden's first trip to Asia since taking office in January 2021. Analysts pointed out that Biden's intention to win japan and South Korea, consolidate alliances, and suppress and contain China is very obvious, aiming to add destabilizing factors to the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific and further create divisions and divisions in the region.
Xu Liping believes that in the "Indo-Pacific economic framework" launched by Biden, Japan and South Korea are the protagonists. Australia's economic structure is less complementary to that of the United States, and its position will not be too important.
China-Australia relations may bottom out
During Morrison's administration, Sino-Australian relations fell to a freezing point. On COVID-19, trade, security and China's internal affairs, Morrison has repeatedly attacked China.
In this regard, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin once said that the difficult situation in Sino-Australian relations was caused by the Australian side, and the Australian side is well aware of this. For some time now, many people of insight in Australia have made objective and rational voices on China-Australia relations and put forward useful suggestions on improving China-Australia relations.
Xu Liping said that during the Morrison administration, Sino-Australian relations have reached the bottom. Morrison played the role of "anti-China vanguard", pushing Australia's largest trading partner, China, to the opposite side, making a mess of the domestic economy, and losing the general election.
Morrison withdrew, Albanes came to power, and many people at home and abroad looked forward to the improvement of China-Australia relations.
The British "Dialogue" news network published an article entitled "The new Australian government and foreign minister have brought new hope to Australia-China relations" and said that the arrival of the Albanes government means that Australia-China relations may improve.
"Although there will be no complete reset [of Australia-China relations], it is still possible to avoid the current bad state of Australia-China relations." The "Dialogue" news network said.
On May 21, local time, The current Prime Minister of Australia, Morrison, announced defeat. Figure/IC photo
A recent survey of the australian people conducted by the Australian think tank Institute for Australia-China Relations showed that as many as 78% of respondents believe that "both Australia and China have a responsibility to improve bilateral relations".
Alan Ginger, former director of the Australian National Assessment Office, believes that through effective diplomacy, Australia's relationship with China is still likely to return to a level close to that of other allies.
Australia's Financial Review newspaper said Australian business leaders expressed hope the new government would pay more attention to trade opportunities with China. Warwick Smith, head of the Australian Business Council, said: "Australia's past diplomacy has not been successful, and the new government needs to pay more attention to trade at the diplomatic level. ”
It is worth mentioning that Albanes will say Chinese, and when he participated in the China-Australia Chamber of Commerce in 2019, he gave a speech Chinese, calling for Australia to establish a closer cooperative relationship with China. During the pandemic, he also denounced disrespectful remarks in Australia that offended the Chinese and acknowledged the contribution of the Chinese community to Australia.
During the campaign debate, Morrison also attacked Labor and Albanes for "getting too close" to China and "weak" towards China. In February, Morrison even publicly attacked Albanes as a "proxy chosen by the Chinese government," a remark that was quickly refuted by The Labour Party.
"It is expected that China-Australia relations will bottom out and rebound next, but how high the rebound is, mainly depends on the performance of the Australian side." Xu Liping said that if the new Australian government wants to achieve the changes in housing, prices, employment, climate and other fields promised in its campaign, it will definitely need to ease relations with China, especially strengthen cooperation in the economic and trade fields.
If the Solomon Islands issue is hyped, it will not be conducive to the easing of China-Australia relations
But at the same time, Albanes and Huang Yingxian also packaged themselves as "tough on China". Speaking about the deterioration of Sino-Australian relations in his campaign debate, Albanes did not blame the Morrison administration for its responsibilities, but instead said that "China has changed its posture."
In addition, Albanes repeatedly used the Solomon Islands issue to attack Morrison for dereliction of duty in foreign policy. Some Labour party members accused the Morrison administration of "the biggest diplomatic failure since World War II for the Solomon Islands to fall to China".
On April 19, China announced that it had formally signed a framework agreement on security cooperation with the Solomon Islands. This paper agreement has aroused heated discussion among relevant people on the Australian side.
Publicly available information shows that the Solomon Islands are located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, and Australia signed a security agreement with the country in 2017. Under the agreement, australia could send uniformed personnel to the Solomon Islands to be responsible for the country's security, if necessary.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin pointed out at a press conference that the essence of China's security cooperation is normal exchanges and cooperation between two sovereign independent countries, which is open, transparent, open and inclusive, does not target any third party, and is parallel to and complementary to the existing bilateral and multilateral security cooperation mechanism in Solomon Islands.
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in solomon islands said on May 11 that China and solomon islands have joined hands to build a community with a shared future for the sea, and some people are indifferent to the practical challenges and development needs faced by Solomon Islands and other Pacific island countries, but they are keen to point fingers at normal exchanges and cooperation between China and the People's Republic of China.
Mr Hsu said both Albanes and Wong had repeatedly mentioned the Solomon Islands issue, but it was unclear whether it was a Labour attack on Morrison and would have a place in the new government's foreign policy. If this issue is hyped, it will certainly be detrimental to the easing of China-Australia relations.
Beijing News reporter Chen Yikai
Edited by Zhang Lei, Proofread by Jia Ning