China’s Zhao Leji Meets Australian House Speaker Dick
Zhao Leji, China’s top legislator, held formal talks with Milton Dick, Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 20, as the two sides pledged to deepen parliamentary exchanges and steady a relationship that has recovered from recent years of tension. The meeting was part of a five-day bipartisan delegation visit to China, running from September 18 to 22, made at Zhao’s invitation.
According to a report carried by People’s Daily, the talks centered on implementing the consensus reached by the two countries’ leaders and on expanding cooperation across traditional and emerging sectors.
A Relationship Steadied
Zhao, who chairs the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), opened by pointing to the Beijing meeting between President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as the strategic anchor for the relationship. China, he said, is willing to work with Australia to advance the “comprehensive strategic partnership” in a sustained and steady manner.
The Chinese legislator stressed that equality, seeking common ground while reserving differences, and mutually beneficial cooperation best serve both nations’ interests. He called for strengthening cooperation in traditional areas such as agriculture, minerals, and energy, while expanding into green development, clean energy, the digital economy, and climate response. He also emphasized exchanges in education, culture, tourism, and youth affairs, alongside coordination in multilateral bodies including the United Nations.
On legislative cooperation, Zhao said the NPC is prepared to work with Australia’s Parliament to strengthen exchanges at all levels and to promote legal frameworks that support bilateral cooperation.
A Bipartisan Delegation
Dick, whose delegation included members from different Australian regions and different political parties, framed the visit as a signal of broad political support at home. “Members of this Australian House of Representatives delegation to China come from different regions and different parties, but all hope to see Australia-China relations develop steadily and enduringly,” he said.
Dick described the current relationship as developing steadily, with practical cooperation across fields and mutual benefit from deeper trade and economic ties. He reiterated Australia’s adherence to the one-China policy and expressed interest in deepening exchanges in trade, culture, agriculture, mining, climate response, and artificial intelligence.
Tie Ning, a Vice Chairwoman of the NPC Standing Committee, also participated in the talks.
Guangdong Leg and a Parallel Party Dialogue
The parliamentary visit extended beyond Beijing. On September 18, the delegation’s first stop was Guangzhou, where Guangzhou Daily reported that Huang Chuping, Director of the Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee, welcomed the group. Huang highlighted Guangdong’s role as a leading province in economy, population, foreign trade, and technological innovation, and proposed deeper cooperation through platforms such as the Canton Fair, the China Hi-Tech Fair, and the Maritime Silk Road Expo.
Dick responded that Australia welcomes a stable and constructive relationship with China and noted Guangdong’s close ties with his country, calling for continued practical cooperation in legislative exchanges, trade and investment, cultural ties, higher education, and emerging technologies.
On the same day as the Zhao talks in Beijing, Liu Haixing, Minister of the Communist Party of China’s International Department, separately met Dick for a party-to-party exchange, according to Xinhua. The two discussed implementing the leaders’ consensus and advancing stable, healthy China-Australia relations.
What It Signals
The talks fit a pattern of intensified legislative diplomacy between the two countries. Zhao’s reference to “last year’s” Xi-Albanese Beijing meeting aligns with the prime minister’s visit to China that Chinese officials have characterized as a turning point, following a period of trade disputes and diplomatic friction between roughly 2020 and 2022.
The emphasis on both traditional sectors, such as minerals and energy, and emerging ones, including clean energy and artificial intelligence, reflects the two economies’ deep complementarity. Yet the visit also produced no announced agreements or memoranda, and Australian domestic coverage of the trip was limited — underscoring that parliamentary exchanges here function more as confidence-building than as deal-making.
What’s Next
Both sides signaled that legislative channels will remain a pillar of engagement. Australia’s Parliament and China’s NPC have agreed in principle to strengthen exchanges within multilateral mechanisms such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The delegation’s visit is scheduled to conclude on September 22, with the practical test being whether the goodwill translates into concrete cooperation in agriculture, critical minerals, and climate technology — areas where both governments have staked political capital.