Australia uses China business summit to push for end to sanctions

Australian CEOs also took a high-profile stance at Boao, an event Beijing uses to try to showcase its connections with international business. Fortescue Metals founder Andrew Forrest addressed the opening ceremony with a call for China to accelerate its renewables rollout to tackle climate change.

While Beijing has welcomed hundreds of global chief executives into the country this week, relations with the United States have hit new lows and many international companies are privately wary of investing in China. The scenes at the Boao Forum were a sharp contrast to Xi Jinping’s summit with Vladimir Putin last week.

“In this uncertain world, the certainty China offers is an anchor for world peace and development. This is the case in the past and will remain so in the future,” Premier Li Qiang said in an address to the forum and his first major speech since taking on the role in March.

Senator Ayres was the first Australian minister to visit China since Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s trip to Beijing in December. He was also the first federal minister to attend the Boao Forum, which started in 2016.

Senator Ayres said he reinforced Australia’s message that it would prefer to directly resolve disputes over tariffs on wine and barley with China rather than through the World Trade Organisation.

He confirmed Australian coal was now arriving into China and restrictions on timber had been eased. It was less clear when restrictions on other products such as lobster, wine and barley would be removed.

“There has certainly been contracts for coal issued and coal delivered into the Chinese market. We are seeing some progress in terms of timber and some technical barriers relating to timber resolved,” said Senator Ayres, who spoke on a climate change panel at the forum on Wednesday.

“On other products, I want to see evidence of not just barriers being removed but product arriving. There has been progress since January, but there is still more work to do.”

For his part, Dr Forrest urged China to accelerate its renewables rollout and help the world tackle climate change. He praised China’s leaders for steering the economy through the “dark winter” of COVID-19.

Dr Forrest said in an interview ahead of a scheduled meeting with Mr Li that he would urge China to put aside their concerns about the AUKUS agreement and focus on collaborating on the climate threat.

”If he raises AUKUS or anything like that I will be saying every country has the right to defend itself, but that it is immaterial, inconsequential, it is a distraction from what is urgent and massive. Global collaboration is now essential to the cessation of global warming,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“I do project this message to all leaders. The economic feelings of insecurity are political power plays at home leading to non-collaboration between massive economic regions [that] will be seen as vacuous, short-sighted, visionless, selfish leadership in the 2020s.”

Dr Forrest, who made his fortune selling iron ore to China, has been touring the country for the past week talking to potential green energy partners and looking at Chinese robotics and automation, which he says made huge advancements during the pandemic.

‘He’s an action man’

He is believed to be the first Australian to meet Mr Li, who was appointed China’s premier in March and will oversee China’s efforts to stabilise its economy.

Mr Li told Dr Forrest and other global executives at a separate conference in Beijing last weekend that China would open up the world’s second-largest economy and encourage foreign investment.

“He [Li] is a dynamo. He’s an action man. He is most likely the man for our times. He seems to be well chosen,” Dr Forrest said. The Australian would not say if he hoped to meet Mr Xi while in China.

Dr Forrest said the Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) green energy venture was exploring partnerships in China in equipment manufacturing and other technologies. Executives were in Inner Mongolia and other parts of the country this week looking at opportunities.

“Without doubt there is very serious green energy opportunities here. We don’t want to go it alone, we would like to go in with Chinese partners, and we are rattling their cage to say stop asking us to joint venture only in Australia … we want to joint venture with you in China,” he said.

FFI is expected to reach a final investment decision on five projects by the end of this year, including in Kenya and other African nations.

Dr Forrest, Rio Tinto boss Jakob Stausholm and BHP chief executive Mike Henry were among more than 100 global business leaders at the event in Beijing on the weekend.

The presence of Australian corporate heavyweights in China this week is a sign of thawing trade and economic relations between Canberra and Beijing despite friction on security issues such as the AUKUS submarine deal.

Although Australian coal imports resumed last month as a two-year ban was eased, Fortescue, Rio Tinto and BHP have been largely unaffected by the diplomatic tensions, and China’s iron ore demand has shown no signs of waning.