“There is a risk in the long term of the Albanese government making compromises that are problematic in terms of the Australian national interests and in terms of ethics,” he says.

“That’s a recipe for effectively ceding a significant part of your sovereign decision-making and outsourcing that to Beijing’s sensitivities.”

One example of this, he says, is the fact that Australia has not followed the US, EU and UK in sanctioning Chinese companies supplying Russia with dual-use technologies for use in its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s a really morally questionable position for the Albanese government to take”, Herscovitch says, and one that undermines Australia’s security as Beijing grows increasingly belligerent in asserting its territorial claims to Taiwan and in the East and South China Sea.

Despite the diplomatic platitudes, the deep fissures in the Australia-China relationship when it comes to competing worldviews, values and systems of government were plain to see. At every stop on Li’s visit – Adelaide, Canberra, and Perth – protesters campaigned against China’s human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghur minority groups and in Tibet, as well as Beijing’s brutal crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.

Inside Parliament House, the move by Chinese diplomats to block journalist and former detainee Cheng Lei from the view of cameras at a signing ceremony sparked a public outcry, with many seeing the incident as emblematic of the Chinese state’s brazen disregard for Australia’s democratic institutions even when guests on foreign soil.

Over the course of the four days, Wong and Albanese assiduously repeated the “co-operate where we can, disagree where we must” mantra that has guided the government’s relationship-repair efforts.

Unquestionably, this approach has borne fruit over the past two years, most notably on the trade front. Beijing has gradually lifted $20 billion in coercive sanctions it slapped on a dozen Australian exports in 2020 in retaliation for the former Coalition government’s more strident and public criticism of China and policy measures such as the Huawei ban and foreign interference laws.

For the long-suffering lobster industry, Li’s visit didn’t bring confirmation of the lifting of this last remaining export ban, but there were announcements about renewed military-to-military communications albeit with little detail, visa-free travel by Australians to China, and of course, two new pandas for Adelaide Zoo.

“Dialogue is how we manage differences,” Albanese told the press in Canberra, as he confirmed he raised with Li the case of Chinese-Australian academic Yang Hengjun, who is facing a suspended death sentence, and other human rights concerns, though he did not go into detail.

Restored communications is a theme the government has hammered home at every turn as it seeks to remind the public of the ministerial-level communication blackout between China and Australia under the former Morrison government.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Justin Bassi had a front-row seat to the nadir of the Australia-China relationship in the Coalition era as chief of staff to former foreign minister Marise Payne.

He said that while the resumption of high-level engagement was important, Li’s visit had added to a growing sense that dialogue was an end in itself. It had the effect of putting the two countries’ “differences” on equal footing.

“Topics such as illegal behaviour in the South China Sea, the arbitrary detention of Australians such as Dr Yang, cyberattacks and foreign interference, none of these are matters of opinion that both sides should be able to air their differences on,” Bassi says.

“That’s the risk of the quiet diplomacy approach ... not explaining to the public what the positions are...is dialogue on Beijing’s terms, not dialogue on Australia’s terms.”

Deciding when, where and how forcefully to air these differences is a tricky diplomatic calculation.

Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor said that while the stabilisation approach had its limits, focusing on the diplomatic niceties that Albanese used with Li was the wrong barometer for assessing Australia’s handling of the relationship.

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“Albanese is not Australia’s sole voice on China,” he says.

“The fundamental differences between Australia and China were never going to be solved by this trip ... It may be a fantasy that we can manage differences in the long term, but there is nothing wrong with trying to do so.”

He pointed to Richard Marles’ speech at the Shangri-La security dialogue in Singapore last month, where the defence minister called out China’s “unsafe” confrontations with Australian naval forces, and its aggression in the South China Sea and Taiwan as a threat to global stability.

Meanwhile, as Li arrived to a red carpet welcome in Kuala Lumpur, Wong touched down in Port Moresby to lead a high-powered delegation of six Australian ministers to Papua New Guinea. It is part of a full-court press by Australia to counter China’s growing influence in the Pacific.

Across a slew of media interviews, she made clear the threat China posed in Australia’s backyard.

“We are in a permanent contest in the Pacific,” she said.

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