China’s third-highest ranking person gets up close with Aussie wildlife as Wong reiterates ‘very consequential’ relationship for Pacific
One of China’s senior political figures posed with local wildlife on a four-day visit Down Under, just days after Penny Wong reiterated Australia’s relationship with the eastern superpower is “hugely important” to the Pacific.
Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, was greeted by a crowd of supporters when he touched down in Brisbane at the weekend.
On Sunday, the senior legislator visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary south of Brisbane, meeting with dignitaries while getting a crash course on some of Australia’s native animals.
Among them, President Leji posed with kangaroos, koalas and even an emu at the wildlife sanctuary, considered the oldest and largest koala sanctuary of its kind in the world.
Photos taken by NewsWire capture him putting on a perfect performance while feeding the iconic kangaroos in the park.
President Leji is expected to complete the Australian leg of his tour on Thursday.
He pledged a “cordial” friendship in New Zealand and called for closer economic ties between the two countries to boost investment ties.
South China Morning Post (SCMP) report chairman Leji emphasized cooperation in areas such as green transformation, digital economy, artificial intelligence and connectivity.
“China is ready to work with New Zealand to consolidate traditional friendship, enhance understanding and mutual trust, reconcile each other’s core interests and important concerns, and become sincere friends and cooperative partners who treat each other equally,” he said, according to the SCMP.
President Leji’s tour follows Anthony Albanese visiting Shanghai in July as part of a massive six-day state visit to discuss business and trade opportunities.
Part of this involved overseeing Tourism Australia signing a deal with Chinese travel giant Trip.com to promote Australia as a destination.
A new tourism advertising campaign, featuring A-list Chinese actor Yu Shi playing tourism icon Ruby the Roo (a Mandarin-speaking kangaroo), is part of this renewed agreement and has been promoted by the Prime Minister.
However, these trips take place in the shadow of increasing militaristic rivalry with China; this includes two People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) frigates and a supply ship that conducted live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea earlier this year.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday China had a “consequential relationship” in the Pacific and Australia still wanted a relationship where they could cooperate with the superpower.
“What I describe to Australians is co-operating where we can, disagreeing where we must and participating in the national interest, and that’s the approach we’ve taken,” Ms Wong told host Palki Sharma of the Indian-run news site Firstpost.
Asked whether Australia would intervene militarily if China made a move against Taiwan, Ms Wong said she would not respond to “hypotheses”.
“I would say Australia’s position is, and I think India’s position is, that we don’t want to see a unilateral change to the status quo,” he said.
“China will continue to defend its interests and is doing what major powers do, which is to defend its own interests.
The challenge for Australia is, and I suspect it is for some other countries, that some of those interests do not align with ours, and so the question for diplomats is how do you achieve that, how do you deal with that?
And we deal with this in part through our other relationships; “So we envision the Indo-Pacific as a region in balance, in strategic balance, where various countries contribute to security in a way that ensures that balance, and India is at the center of that.”
