logo
Australian prime minister indulges in panda diplomacy as state visit in China nears end

Australian prime minister indulges in panda diplomacy as state visit in China nears end

Yahoo17-07-2025
BEIJING (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has toured a panda breeding facility in the final stages of an extended state visit that has cast China as a fellow champion of a global fair trade system under threat from the United States.
The panda diplomacy stop Thursday in the central Chinese city of Chengdu highlighted Australia's special status as the only Southern Hemisphere country to host a pair of the rare Chinese native animals.
Albanese and his fiancée Jodie Haydon visited a pen where they saw Fu Ni, a giant panda who had been on loan to Australia's Adelaide Zoo until last year.
'A great ambassador for China and a great friend of Australia,' Albanese said of Fu Ni as she chomped on bamboo.
China loans Australia pandas
Premier Li Qiang used a visit to the Adelaide Zoo last year to announce Fu Ni and her partner Wang Wang would be replaced by another China-born pair that will hopefully breed.
The new couple, Xing Qiu and Yi Yan, made their public debut in January at the zoo in the South Australia state capital where they are a major tourist attraction.
Albanese's China trip, which began Saturday and ends on Friday, is extraordinarily long compared with Australian state visits over the past decade and marks a normalization of bilateral relations that plumbed new depths under the previous Australian government's nine-year reign.
Albanese said he had visited Chengdu and the Great Wall of China, as well at the usual diplomatic destinations of Beijing and Shanghai, as a show of respect to the Chinese people.
'The Great Wall of China symbolises the extraordinary history and culture here in China, and showing a bit of respect to people never cost anything. But you know what it does? It gives you a reward,' Albanese told reporters.
'One of the things that I find about giving countries respect is that you get it back,' he added.
In 2020, Beijing banned minister-to-minister contacts and imposed a series of official and unofficial trade barriers on commodities including wine, beef, coal, barley and lobsters that cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year. This was a response to Australia's previous government demanding an independent inquiry into the cause of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the pandemic was the final straw, relations had been deteriorating for years over issues including laws banning covert foreign interference in Australian politics and Australia barring Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei on security grounds from involvement in the national 5G network rollout.
The trade barriers have all been lifted since Albanese's center-left Labor Party was first elected in 2022. But now, the United States threatens to become a major disruptor to global trade through President Donald Trump's tariff regime.
Chinese president urges Australia to hold course
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Albanese at the outset of their bilateral meeting in Beijing Tuesday that the important thing their two countries had learned in repairing relations was that equal treatment, seeking common ground and pursuing cooperation served the interests of both.
'No matter how the international landscape may evolve, we should uphold this overall direction unswervingly,' Xi said through an interpreter. The comment was widely interpreted as a reference to U.S. tariffs.
Albanese replied that his government welcomed progressing cooperation under their decade-old bilateral free trade agreement.
'Australia will remain a strong supporter of free and fair trade,' Albanese said.
The United States has allocated Australia the minimum 10% tariff on U.S. imports. Australia argues that any tariff cannot be justified and that the U.S. has enjoyed a trade surplus with Australia for decades.
The greater economic damage for Australia would likely be from a Chinese economic downturn caused by its U.S. tariff treatment. Around a third of Australian exports go to China.
Australia shifts away from the US
James Laurenceson, director of the University of Technology Sydney's Australia-China Relations Institute, described China's presentation of itself as Australia's ally in defending free trade as 'self-serving."
'It's not so much Australia aligning with China. It's really just about Australia and China agreeing they've got a shared interest in the existing system, and it's the U.S. that's walking away from that,' Laurenceson said.
'I don't think the big shift this week is Australia getting closer to China. I think the distance with the United States is getting wider and wider,' he added.
Albanese's political enemies have criticised him for now having four face-to-face meetings with Xi – including two in Beijing – while the prime minister has yet to meet Trump in person.
Albanese and Trump were to hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a Group of Seven summit in Canada last month, but the U.S. president left early.
Albanese said this week he expected to meet Trump this year.
'I look forward to a constructive engagement with President Trump. We have had three constructive phone conversations,' Albanese said.
______
McGuirk contributed to this report from Melbourne, Australia
Solve the daily Crossword
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Wall Street Giant Bets $250M on Struggling U.S. Farmers in High-Stakes Credit Play
Wall Street Giant Bets $250M on Struggling U.S. Farmers in High-Stakes Credit Play

Yahoo

time7 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Wall Street Giant Bets $250M on Struggling U.S. Farmers in High-Stakes Credit Play

Carlyle Group (NASDAQ:CG) is making a $250 million bet on America's embattled farmersright as bankruptcies across the agriculture sector hit a post-2020 high. Through a forward flow agreement, Carlyle has committed to buying loans originated by FarmOp Capital, a lender focused on helping crop producers bridge the gap between planting and harvest. The working capital loans, typically $3.5 million apiece, are structured around staple grains like corn, soybeans, and wheat. But instead of relying on land as collaterala nonstarter for many rentersthese loans are backed by crops, crop insurance, and forward contracts, giving farmers the financial flexibility traditional banks no longer offer. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 7 Warning Signs with CG. It's a timely move. Small-business bankruptcies among farmers and fishermen have surged this year as falling commodity prices, rising input costs, and weaker Chinese demand squeeze margins. The industry is going through a tough period, FarmOp CEO Keir Renick said. Farmers can get into trouble when prices go down and they are not hedged. Most banks have pulled back from lending to landless operators, creating a vacuum that alternative lenders like FarmOp are stepping in to fill. These loans, often lasting about 18 months, are tailored to experienced operators who rent land and need short-term capital to stay afloat. For Carlyle, this isn't a one-off. The firm is steadily building its asset-backed credit platformnow managing $9 billionthrough exposure to real-world assets like residential solar loans and fintech lending deals. Akhil Bansal, who leads Carlyle's asset-backed finance division, described farm lending as a very stable but growing asset class, thanks to its multi-layered contractual protections. The firm's approach signals a broader strategy: back specialty lenders that solve real economic problems, especially in sectors where traditional capital has dried up. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Labour ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn says he's starting a new left-wing UK party
Labour ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn says he's starting a new left-wing UK party

Yahoo

time7 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Labour ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn says he's starting a new left-wing UK party

LONDON (AP) — Labour Party ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn said Thursday that he's forming a new left-leaning U.K. political party to advocate "mass redistribution of wealth and power' and take on his former colleagues at the ballot box. The new formation has a website — — but doesn't have a name yet. 'It's your party,' Corbyn said. 'We're going to decide (a name) when we've had all the responses, and so far the response rate has been massive.' Corbyn said that he hoped the new party would have its inaugural conference in the fall. Corbyn, 76, led Labour to election defeats in 2017 and 2019, but the veteran socialist campaigner remains popular with many grassroots supporters. and the new party has the potential to further fragment British politics. The long-dominant Labour and Conservative parties now have challengers on both left and right, including the environmentalist Green Party and hard-right Reform UK. Plans for a new party emerged earlier this month when lawmaker Zarah Sultana, who has been suspended from Labour for voting against the government, said that she would 'co-lead the founding of a new party' with Corbyn. At the time, Corbyn didn't confirm the news. On Thursday, he denied the party launch had been messy, saying the process was "democratic, it's grassroots and it's open." A longtime supporter of Palestinians and a critic of Israel, Corbyn was suspended from Labour in 2020 after Britain's equalities watchdog found anti-Jewish prejudice had been allowed to spread within Labour while he was leader. He was suspended after failing to fully accept the findings¸ claiming opponents had exaggerated the scale of antisemitism in Labour for 'political reasons.' Corbyn was reelected to Parliament last year as an independent. Prime Minister Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 and dragged the party back toward the political center ground. He dropped Corbyn's opposition to Britain's nuclear weapons, strongly backed sending weapons to Ukraine and stressed the party's commitment to balancing the books. Starmer won a landslide election victory a year ago, but has struggled to maintain unity among Labour lawmakers as the government struggles to get a sluggish economy growing and invest in overstretched public services. He has been forced into a series of U-turns by his own lawmakers, including one on welfare reform that left his authority severely dented. Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store