Xi made his comments in a congratulatory message for Australia Day yesterday on 26 January to the Australian Governor-General David Hurley. Australia and China "have reviewed the past and looked to the future, making active efforts towards the right direction of improving and growing China-Australia ties", Xi said, according to Xinhua.

After three years of tense relations over a range of issues including trade, signs have emerged recently that their ties are warming. China had put unofficial bans on Australian products from coal to wine in 2020, after Australia called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and put a 5G network ban on China’s telecoms giant Huawei. Duties on wines were imposed on Australian wines barely a year after the Foreign Treaty Agreement between the two had become fully operative with complete waiver of import duties.

The trade ministers of the two countries did not meet for three years though the Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong met her Chinese counterpart, Wang Y, last month for the first time since 2019.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia in November, when the thawing of relations was observed. Earlier this month, China granted permission for select companies to restart importing Australian coal.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao is expected to meet his Australian counterpart, Don Farrell soon online though the agency Xinhua did not specify the date, according to the report by Reuter.

Source: Agency Reports