查尔默斯本周将启程前往北京，展开为期两天的访问，成为近七年来首位出访中国的澳大利亚财政部部长。此行预示着澳中关系紧张状态正在缓和。
查尔默斯于周四抵达，并与中国国家发展和改革委员会主任何立峰合作主持两国战略经济对话。这一对话上次举行是在2017年。
会谈内容主要围绕增强对华贸易、投资以及推动澳大利亚和中国企业间的合作机会进行讨论，据官方文件显示。
“这是稳定我们与中国经济关系的一个关键性进展。”查尔默斯在布里斯班表示，并强调此次访问是阿尔巴内塞政府有计划地恢复与中国对话的一部分。
澳中两国的关系曾在2020年达到低点。当时澳大利亚政府呼吁进行独立的COVID-19起源和应对措施的调查，导致中国采取了一系列官方和非正式的禁令，涉及煤炭、棉花、葡萄酒、大麦、牛肉、龙虾和木材等商品，每年造成高达澳元200亿（约人民币1300亿元）的损失。
自前政府卸任以来，这些贸易障碍大部分已被消除。阿尔巴内塞上任后，两国关系开始回暖；去年11月，阿尔巴内斯成为了七年来首位访问中国的澳大利亚总理，同时李强也成为七年内的首位访华中国总理。
尽管如此，澳方仍保持着对中国作为贸易伙伴的警惕性，并寻求深化与人口最多的国家印度之间经济联系。
在改善与北京的关系的同时，澳大利亚亦在追求与世界人口最多的另一个主要经济体——印度建立更紧密的经济关系。就在周三，印度商工部长皮尤什·戈尔（Piyush Goyal）与澳大利亚对等官员唐·法雷尔（Don Farrell）会面，讨论了推动2022年签署的新双边自由贸易协定进展的问题。
“鉴于澳大利亚对我们的重要性，我们正在努力增强在贸易、投资、旅游和科技领域的伙伴关系。我要做出的第一个声明是：我们将很快在悉尼设立一个覆盖这四个领域的办公室。”戈尔告诉记者，在法雷尔的家乡阿德莱德进行上述会面时说。
澳大利亚与中国的自由贸易协定自2015年生效以来一直保持实施状态。
新闻来源：www.abcnews.go.com
原文地址：Australia’s treasurer will visit China this week in the latest sign that bilateral ties are mending
新闻日期：2024-09-25
原文摘要：
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will this week become the first Australian government minister in that key economic role to visit China in seven years, in the latest sign that strained bilateral relations are mending. Chalmers flies to Beijing on Thursday for a two-day visit. The last Australian treasurer to visit China was Scott Morrison in 2017. Morrison rose to become prime minister a year later and bilateral relations further soured under his rule until his conservative government was replaced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party after the 2022 general election. Chalmers said Wednesday that the main purpose of his visit was to co-chair the Australia-China Strategic Economic Dialogue on Thursday with He Lifeng, chair of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. Discussions will focus on growing trade and investment with China and opportunities for Australian and Chinese businesses to cooperate, government documents say. “This is another really important step towards stabilizing our economic relationship with China,” Chalmers told reporters in Brisbane. “It will be part of the Albanese government‘s methodical and coordinated efforts to reestablish dialogue with China, Australia’s largest trading partner,” Chalmers added. The dialogue was last held in 2017. The bilateral relationship plumbed new depths in 2020 after the Morrison government called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. China imposed a series of official and unofficial bans in 2020 on Australian products, including coal, cotton, wine, barley, beef, lobsters and wood that cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year. Most of those trade obstacles have been removed since the conservative government was ousted after nine years in office. In November, Albanese became the first Australian prime minister to visit China in seven years. In June, Li Qiang became the first Chinese premier to visit Australia in seven years. But Australia remains wary of China as a trading partner despite improving relations and is keen forge closer economic ties to the world’s most populous nation, India. Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal met with his Australian counterpart Don Farrell in Australia on Wednesday to discuss progress on a new bilateral free trade deal that furthers a 2022 pact. “As a testimony of the importance that the Australia relationship is to India, we are looking at significantly upscaling our partnerships in trade, investment, tourism and technology and therefore one of the first announcements I’d like to make is that we shall shortly be setting up in Sydney an office covering all these four areas,” Goyal told reporters in Farrell’s hometown of Adelaide. Australia has had a free trade agreement with China since 2015.
