Australia’s fraught journey with China continues. The Albanese government now wrestles with the same harsh global and regional realities as its predecessors.

The crisis brought about by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in early August now appears to have ruptured much of the initial attempts on both the Australian and Chinese sides to at least begin talking to each other again. That cautious resumption of ministerial contact with Beijing at the defence and foreign ministerial levels had not ushered in any reprieve from Chinese economic coercion. Two Australian citizens – Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei – remain incarcerated in China.