On the last day of her Australian visit, the Chinese Prime Minister will focus on key minerals and clean energy

MELBOURNE, Australia – Chinese Premier Li Qiang concluded his Australian tour on Tuesday in the west coast city of Perth, where he focused on China’s investments in key minerals, clean energy and business ties.

Perth is the capital of the state of Western Australia, which last year provided 39% of the world’s iron ore resources. Iron ore is one of Australia’s most lucrative exports. Analysts say the commodity was spared trade bans imposed by Beijing on other Australian exports three years ago as bilateral relations deteriorated because the steel-making component was crucial to China’s industrial development.

Last week, Li became the first Chinese prime minister to visit New Zealand in seven years, followed by Australia. He left Perth late Tuesday for Malaysia, where he will be the first Chinese prime minister to visit since 2015.

While in Perth, China’s second most powerful leader after President Xi Jinping inspected Fortescue’s clean energy research facility, an iron ore mine.

Fortescue CEO Andrew Forrest said Li was interested in the company’s plans to produce carbon-free iron ore and potentially “green iron.”

“I think China chose us because it’s not only the best green technology in Australia, it’s the best green technology in the world to go green and we have real examples of it in trains, ship engines and trucks,” he said Forrest to The Associated Press ahead of the visit.

The Perth plant is testing hydrogen, ammonia and battery energy technology for trains, ships, trucks and heavy mining equipment.

Li also visited the Chinese-controlled Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia processing plant south of Perth to highlight China’s interest in investing in critical minerals. The plant produces lithium hydroxide intended for electric vehicle batteries.

Australia shares US concerns about China’s global dominance of key minerals and control over renewable energy supply chains.

Citing Australia’s national interests, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recently ordered five China-linked companies to divest their shares in rare earth mining company Northern Minerals.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote in an opinion piece published in Perth’s main newspaper, The West Australian, on Tuesday that his government was working to ensure foreign investment “continues to serve our national interests”.

“This includes reforming the foreign investment framework to make it more efficient, more transparent and more effective in managing risk,” Albanese wrote.

Forrest said the national risk associated with Chinese investments in the critical minerals sector is overstated.

“Australia should produce all the critical minerals in the world because we are a huge mining country, so let’s definitely go after the more critical minerals, but let’s not do it in a panic because there is no need to panic,” Forrest said.

Qiang and Albanese arrived in Perth on separate planes late Monday night from the capital, Canberra, where the two leaders held their official annual meeting with senior ministers at Parliament House.

The two leaders took part in a roundtable with Perth business leaders representing resource companies including mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black said business dialogue was vital to the bilateral relationship between two free trading partners.

“While there have been difficult periods in the bilateral relationship between the two nations, I think it is safe to say that this is another positive point of progress,” Black said at the meeting.

“It shows that while the parameters of bilateral relationships are set by governments, they will always be sustained by the quality of personal relationships, and especially those personal relationships that persist at the business-to-business level,” Black added.

China’s prime ministers and Australia’s prime ministers met annually from 2013 to 2019, after which Beijing banned contacts between the ministers following a call by the previous conservative government for an independent investigation into the causes of and response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Relations were already strained by Australian legislation that banned covert foreign interference in Australian politics and excluded Chinese-owned telecommunications giant Huawei from building the country’s 5G network on security grounds.

Beijing initiated a reset in relations after the election of Albanese’s center-left Labor Party in 2022.

Annual meetings resumed when Albanese visited Beijing last November.

Albanese revealed that his office had filed a complaint with the Chinese embassy over the behavior of two officials during a media event with the two leaders after Monday’s meeting.

Albanese said Australia had “concerns” that two Chinese officials stood in the way of cameras taking photos of prominent Australian journalist Cheng Lei sitting with other reporters during the leaders’ speech.

Cheng spent more than three years in detention in China for violating the embargo by broadcasting on state television while she was in Beijing. She was made redundant last year after intervention by the Australian government and now works for Sky News Australia.

“Honestly, looking at the footage, it was quite a clumsy attempt by several people to stand between where the cameras were and where Cheng Lei was sitting,” Albanese said.

“There should be no obstacles to Australian journalists doing their work, which we have made clear to the Chinese Embassy,” Albanese added.

China-born Cheng told Sky News on Monday that officials “made every effort to shield me from the cameras and flank me.”

– I just guess it’s to stop me from saying or doing something they think will look bad. But that in itself was frowned upon,” Cheng said.

The embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Li and Albanese made statements at the press event, but neither responded to questions from gathered reporters.

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