Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have cemented unprecedented goodwill this week, more than half a century after Sino-Australian diplomatic relations were established in 1972.

The two leaders have overseen a series of free trade agreements with no sanctions or taxes, in accordance with the principles of the World Trade Organization. They have shown the world how nations can co-exist without petty bickering to achieve common goals. By contrast, US President Donald Trump is imposing sanctions on all his trading partners and pressuring allies to increase their defense expenditures.

Albanese's just concluded trip to China, which took him to Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu, Sichuan province, was a schedule of wall-to-wall meetings, banquets, and sightseeing, including one-to-one sessions with Xi, Premier Li Qiang, and top legislator Zhao Leji. The Chinese side laid out the red carpet for the visiting leader with honor guards and state banquets.

Albanese arrived in China with an obvious agenda, saying: "We will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest." The West Australian newspaper reported that this was more than a slogan, but rather “a carefully balanced playbook for all sides".

Albanese's trip revealed something different: respect, caution, and optimism.

The two leaders made it clear that mutual respect is now the foundation for deeper engagement, at least for the second decade of a comprehensive strategic partnership.

The red-carpet treatment for Albanese underscores the importance China attaches to its relationship with Australia, a relationship that had sunk to an all-time low under Australia’s previous Liberal government headed by Scott Morrison.

Morrison had been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump during the latter’s first tenure as the US president. He sided with Trump in investigations regarding the outbreak of COVID-19, laid the blame on China, and snatched a lucrative submarine deal from France before awarding it to a US-led consortium to strengthen US power in the Pacific.

He also allowed the free flow of black propaganda from the US that China was threatening to invade Australia, and imposed a series of sanctions on China.

When the Labor government took office in 2022, Albanese managed to persuade Beijing to remove a series of official and unofficial trade barriers introduced under the previous government, which cost Australian exporters more than $13 billion annually.

The Australian Liberal Party remains strongly pro-US, and the party leader criticized Albanese for not meeting with Trump before meeting with Xi so soon after Australia’s federal election in May. The Libs called on Albanese to go hard on China especially in regard to Chinese navy drills around Australia and an Australian citizen facing a suspended death sentence in China.

Xi met with Albanese at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and noted that the China-Australia relationship had risen "from the setback and turned around, bringing tangible benefits to the Chinese and Australian peoples".

The most important thing we can learn from this is that a commitment to equal treatment, to seeking common ground while sharing differences, and to pursuing mutually beneficial cooperation serves the fundamental interests of our two countries and two peoples, Xi said.

The entire series of meetings went off without a hitch despite attempts by the US to derail the visit.  Last weekend, when Albanese arrived in Shanghai, the White House planted a story in the Financial Times, asking Australia and Japan to choose sides in the event of a war over China’s Taiwan region.

The timing of the report was to embarrass Australia in the eyes of the Chinese at the start of the state visit. The press knew the answer to their question, and unflinchingly, Albanese answered that statesmen do not reply to hypothetical questions, but added that Australia honors the status quo regarding Taiwan — that is, Canberra honors the one-China policy.

With that over with, it was down to business with smiles all the way.

Australia has found China to be a reliable partner that has never broken an international agreement.

And Albanese is his own man. He is, for example, ignoring pressure from the US to increase defense expenditure in Australia, a ploy the US is applying to all nations to get them to purchase more weapons — mostly American weapons.

Albanese said Australia is willing to strengthen high-level exchanges and dialogue with China in various fields, including diplomacy and trade, and ensure that differences do not define the bilateral relationship.

Noting that the economies of Australia and China are highly complementary, Albanese said Australia looks forward to deepening mutually beneficial cooperation in areas such as trade, agriculture, tourism, and culture, as well as enhancing people-to-people exchanges in education, civil society, and the youth sector.

And Australia should be willing to provide a stable and predictable environment for Chinese enterprises to invest and operate in Australia, and welcome more Chinese students and tourists to visit the country.

The author, a public relations/media consultant and a veteran journalist, is a former chief information officer of the Hong Kong SAR government. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.