Preparations in Canberra underway ahead of talks with Chinese Premier

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Preparations are underway and security is being tightened in Canberra for the arrival of the Chinese premier Li Qiang who will meet with prime minister Anthony Albanese on Monday.

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00:00You're already seeing fences going up all over the place.

00:04This is a really fairly extraordinary level of security that's already in place, reminiscent

00:10perhaps of what we saw back more than a decade ago when President Obama came to Canberra

00:15as part of a visit to Australia.

00:17So you're already seeing some bollards going up, you're seeing essentially an enormous

00:21fence placed down Federation Mall in front of Parliament House where we anticipate there'll

00:27be two duelling groups, on one side protesters who will be protesting Li Qiang when he arrives,

00:34on the other side supporters of the Chinese Communist Party and of the Chinese government.

00:39So the police are already planning it seems to keep those two groups firmly separated.

00:44On top of that you've also got a lot of fencing going up near the hotel where the Premier

00:48is staying and if you look around a little bit you'll see as well roving bands of Chinese

00:53officials inspecting some of those slipways, causeways and roads around Parliament House

00:58where you'd expect the Premier's motorcade to be travelling.

01:02So plenty of activity inside and outside of Parliament House even a few days before the

01:06Premier actually lands here.

01:09And Premier Lee was in talks with New Zealand's Prime Minister yesterday.

01:12What came out of that?

01:14An interesting set of talks yesterday between Premier Lee and Christopher Luxon, New Zealand's

01:19Prime Minister.

01:20Today the Premier is in Auckland on a separate series of meetings.

01:24But worth going back quickly to some of those main outcomes.

01:27Most of the announcements were fairly minor, a couple of potentially significant announcements

01:32on new trade agreements or new trade and services, but typically we saw announcements that were

01:39fairly modest in scale.

01:41Interesting also to note some of the increasing tensions between New Zealand and China.

01:46Traditionally China and New Zealand have had a very comfortable relationship that hasn't

01:50typically been bedevilled by some of the tensions you've seen between China and Australia over

01:56security.

01:57But that does seem to be changing slightly, in particular the fact that New Zealand is

02:01thinking about joining the second pillar of the AUKUS agreement with the US, the UK and

02:05Australia to potentially collaborate on high-end military technology.

02:10That prospect is something that China regards with an awful lot of hostility and Christopher

02:15Luxon said that Premier Lee did raise that yesterday in their meetings to make it fairly

02:19clear that China regards AUKUS as an unfriendly grouping and that it would not like New Zealand

02:25to take part in it.

02:26Even on the trade front, Ruby, where things have been very cosy for a long time, there's

02:30also some signs of some things shifting, even as trade, particularly in commodities, is

02:35booming between the two countries.

02:37In particular, last year New Zealand said it would welcome China joining the so-called

02:42CPTPP.

02:43That's a sprawling trade pact taking in more than 11 countries across the region.

02:48Now it's saying instead that it simply notes China's interests in joining.

02:53So in some ways there are perhaps early signs the relationship could be cooling as New Zealand

02:59starts to confront some of the same dilemmas that Australia has been facing for quite some

03:03time now about how you maintain an amicable and easy relationship with your largest trading

03:12partner.

03:16It's a difficult balancing act and it's one that New Zealand in some ways is only now

03:20really beginning to regard with a lot of seriousness.

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