China’s Premier Li Qiang and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Parliament House in Canberra on June 17, 2024. –— AFP picSYDNEY, June 18 — Chinese Premier Li Qiang will meet business leaders and lawmakers in Western Australia today, and is expected to visit a lithium processing plant in the resource-rich state on the last day of his four-day visit to Australia.
Li’s visit is the first to Australia by a Chinese premier in seven years and marks a stabilisation in ties between the US security ally and the world’s second-biggest economy. Western Australia supplies more than half of the world’s seaborne iron ore, with China among its top customers, and half of its lithium. China has been an investor in Australian mining projects though some recent investment in critical minerals has been blocked by Australia on national interest grounds.