Football and tourism have been the focus of the prime minister’s first full day in China as questions about Australia’s participation in a potential future conflict with the Asian superpower overshadow his six-day tour.
Former Socceroo Kevin Muscat joined Anthony Albanese on a morning walk along Shanghai’s historic Bund promenade on Sunday to promote the two nations’ interpersonal links.
Now coaching Shanghai Port FC, Muscat last year became the first Australian manager to lead a Chinese Super League team to the premiership.
The former midfield enforcer has brought over a host of Australian coaching staff, including fellow ex-Socceroo Ross Aloisi, in a sign of the deepening collaboration between Australia and China on the sporting field.
A keen tennis player, Mr Albanese will also make an announcement about extending an Australian Open wildcard tournament in the southwestern city of Chengdu later in the visit.
“One of the things about Australia and China that’s so important is we build people-to-people relations and we do that by the participation of Australians here,” the prime minister said.
“Whether it be here in football, or whether it be the lead-in tournament that’s going to take place in Chengdu for the Australian Open (or) the business relationships that we have here as well.”
Looking across the Huangpu River to the towering skyscrapers on the opposite bank, Mr Albanese reflected on the phenomenal economic transformation China had undergone in recent decades.
That boom has seen no small benefit flow to Australia, whose iron ore exports helped build the Shanghai skyline and filled the federal government’s coffers.
“When I first came here in the 1990s, the area Pudong was very different indeed,” Mr Albanese said in a meeting with local Chinese Communist Party official Chen Jining.
“There were farms where there is now a great metropolis.
“The development we can see across the river is symbolic of the extraordinary development that China has seen in recent decades, lifting literally hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and creating economic benefit for the people of China but also increased economic engagement with countries like Australia.”
A burgeoning Chinese middle class, with a new found appetite for travel, has flocked to Australia in recent decades though recent tourist numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels.
To promote Australia as a travel destination, the prime minister will oversee the signing of a memorandum of understanding between online travel giant Trip.com – which owns popular bookings sites such as Skyscanner – and Tourism Australia.
He will also unveil a new tourism campaign to air in China starring local film star Yu Shi and Ruby the Roo, an animated kangaroo voiced by Rose Byrne.
Amid the positive rhetoric around Sino-Australian relations, Mr Albanese is doing his best to dodge the US-sized elephant in the room.
Military tensions were highlighted by revelations that US defence strategist Elbridge Colby has been pushing Australia and Japan to clarify what role they would play in a potential conflict with China
But acting Defence Minister Pat Conroy on Sunday reiterated Australia’s long-established stance on whether it would join the US in a war.
“The decision to commit Australian troops to a conflict will be made by the government of the day, not in advance,” he told ABC’s Insiders program.
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