Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Australia and New Zealand for a five-day visit starting Sunday, the Chinese government said, as ties between Beijing and Canberra continue to improve after years of tensions on trade and other issues.
The announcement on Thursday comes after Beijing reached an interim decision to remove sanctions on Australian wine that have been in place since 2020. The visit will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister to Australia since 2017.
Wang will meet with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong for the seventh China-Australia Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a statement.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters Thursday that "it's a good thing to have dialogue" with China and added, "I look forward to meeting Wang Yi during his visit to Canberra next week."
He also welcomed "some significant progress when it comes to removing impediments that were in place to trade" between the two countries, calling the interim decision on wine tariffs "a positive development."
Remaining trade restrictions on Australian goods such as lobster, as well as human rights issues and regional security, are expected to be on the agenda for the talks.
Relations between Beijing and Canberra have steadily improved under the Albanese-led Labor government since it took office in May 2022, after bilateral ties soured over a series of issues, including human rights concerns in China and Canberra's call for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Points of contention remain, including the recent suspended death sentence handed to Chinese-Australian blogger Yang Hengjun, who has been detained in China on espionage charges since 2019.
In New Zealand, Wang will meet Foreign Minister Winston Peters and will have an official dinner in the capital Wellington, with talks to cover the future of the bilateral relationship and regional and global issues, including the importance of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, Peters said in a statement.
Wang's last visit to New Zealand as foreign minister was 2017, according to the statement.
