Australian PM wants to ask China’s Xi to lift trade barriers

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he’ll ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to lift billions of dollars in trade barriers in the event that the two leaders hold their first bilateral meeting. Both leaders will attend a Group of 20 meeting in Indonesia then an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Thailand next week. Albanese was speaking in Sydney before departing Australia on Friday for an East Asia Summit in Cambodia, which Xi will not attend. A face-to-face meeting between the Chinese and Australian leaders would mark a major reset in a bilateral relationship that plumbed new depths under the nine-year rule of Australia’s previous conservative government.