I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven am. Donald Trump and Ggping have met face to face for the first time in six years. The meeting on the sidelines of the Apex Summit comes at a time of deep tensions between the world's two largest economies. Tariffs are souring, critical minerals are being weaponized, and the battleover tech dominance is reshaping global supply chains. Trump likes quick wins while
g plays the long game. And for Australia, the stakes couldn't be higher as we rely on China for our prosperity and the US for our security. Today, host of the ABC podcast Global Roaming Hamus McDonald and what happened at the meeting between the world's two superpowers are what it means for Australia. It's Friday, October thirty one, Hamish, thanks for speaking with me again. The two men most responsible for Australia's prosperity and security, Jijingping and Donald Trump, have just met.
A great honor to be with a friend of mine really for a long time now, if you think about it, the very very distinguished and respected president of China.
So just how significant was this meeting?
Well, you might say it really mattered for us, wouldn't you when you think about the influence they have both on as you say, in our security arrangements, but also our economic livelihood here in Australia, not to mention the fact that if they're not getting along jointly, that poses an even greater set of risks and even threats to US as a nation. So yeah, we as a country
had a lot riding on this. It went for an hour and forty minutes, and at least on the face of it, coming out this side of the meeting, it seems to have gone about as well as anyone might have hoped estions.
I think we've already agreed to a lot of things, and we'll agree to some more right now. But President she is a great leader of a great country, and I think we're going to have a fantastic relationship for a long period of time. And it's an honor to have you with us. Sake you very much.
In terms of Trump's visits to different parts of the world, his interactions with other world leaders, it kind of went without too many speed bumps even along the way during this kind of swing through Southeast Asia up into South Korea and then off onto Air Force one and home twelve and ten. According to President Trump, he would say that, wouldn't he But I don't know if I'd go quite that far. But I think you can't ignore the fact that Trump came to the AZION summit. That's a big deal.
That's a kind of a kup for a my Ibrahim, the Malaysian Prime minister who's got the current chair of AZION. You can't ignore the fact that Trump had very kind words to say about Southeast Asia, spoke admiringly of its growth. You know, the fastest growing region economically in the world. But if you look at I guess from our perspective, Australia. Albanesi sat next to him at that dinner in South Korea.
Trump effusive in his praise for Albanesi, pointing both to what they've agreed on so far but the possibility of further agreements. Then meeting Sanai Takeichi, the Japanese Prime minister, you know, a week and a half into the job, she gets this kind of rapturous welcome on board a US naval ship. Applause. She's jumping around on the stage waving. He says, you know, Japan. You can have anything you want.
Think about that in the context of some of his meetings with European leaders, with Zelenski, even with leaders from the Middle East. This is a really very different version of Trump, and even the tone and the manner of the meeting with Shi Jimpin going in with some pretty kind words not although I should point out he did say we're going to resume nuclear testing just before going into the meeting, so as always playing a couple of cards at once.
Yeah, the meaning comes at a time where the China and US relationship has been dodgy. It best in the middle of a trade war. So how has the US China relationship unfolded under the Trump.
We've been in a period of what appeared to be deliberate antagonism, at least from the US point of view. You know, the Liberation Day taris, I think were viewed by most of the rest of the world as a pretty antagonistic move.
April second, twenty twenty five will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again. Going to make it wealthy good.
So I've seen this description used a lot in terms of the Chinese approach in recent months, which is escalat to de escalate, And I think to understand that, it's worth going back six months in time to when the US introduced those tariffs on Chinese goods one hundred and forty five percent. The Chinese then responded with one hundred and twenty five percent tariffs, So that's kind of escalation one. But then there's the whole question of chips and then
rare earth minerals. So the thing that's really upset the Chinese is that the Trump administration suddenly clamped down on how much the US and Nvidia, being the big player here, could export these much needed chips, advanced chips to China used for advanced computing, but weaponry, A lot of the things that China is so madly trying to develop they relied on that. Suddenly the supply of that was radically reduced.
In recent weeks, China escalated and decided to put export controls on process rare earth minerals.
Fury Secretary Scott Besson says China is trying to hurt the world's economy.
Whether it's sweeping where Earth controls because of a sign of how weak the country's economy is.
The Financial Times published this is where Australia was dealt into the picture. Kind of luckily for Anthony Alberizi because it happened just before he went to Washington for that long awaited meeting, and an issue that Australia had wanted to deal with in America for a long time was the processing an extraction of rare earth minerals from here, and Beijing kind of offered this kind of golden opportunity for Albanesi to offer something to Trump that he really wanted.
But that kind of escalate to de escalate seems to have worked. I've already seen lots of people saying who blinked first, but I think clearly to some degree Trump blinked because it did go to this willing to ratchet things down, and coming out of the meeting, we're told that the hurdles on rare earths have been removed, that the Chinese are going to get a meeting with the Nvidia CEO. There's an indication that the soybean purchased from
China from America was going to begin again. So certainly positive sounds.
So he's saying they've escalated in the lead up, and they've both now de escalated as they've gone into this meeting.
I saw someone describe this as like two people that started a fire coming together to try and put it out. Maybe that's a helpful way of thinking about it. And you know, she, in many ways, he's like the complete polar opposite of Trump. Trump goes in swaggering, saying things off the calf, nothing is on script. She is totally on script. And he's talking about these two men that can sail ships together through choppy waters and that the world can find sort of smooth sailing ahead if they're
able to work together. You know, it's not like this meeting could ever resolve everything. There are key geostrategic issues which haven't been resolved. I don't think we know yet what's going to happen with TikTok. That was one of the other things that Trump wanted to deal with in this meeting. But that said, and to their credit, they've emerged from this with Trump saying that she is going to visit him in America, that Trump is going to
before that visit China. So at least, and this is maybe the thing that we can take away from this is that the stuff that remains unresolved at least has a context to be resolved. You know, that framework that underpinning is there because the leaders are due to have meetings and that need to cancel them. They need to pull out of them, and that would in itself be
a big thing to do. So I think we can, you know, with all the usual caveats around everything to do with Donald Trump, we can have a bit of cautious hope that the trade war is not going to at least escalate at this point. They're still going to be trade barriers there by the way, you know, don't forget.
That coming up. Jijiping says tensions between the two countries is normal. So where does this leave Australia. Can you tell me a little bit more about Jijiping's vision for China's future and how America plays into that or has the potential to thwart it.
Yeah.
So we actually we did an episode on this just last week on Global rhyming about the picture domestically in China, because you know, the reality is, Trump sucks up so much of the global news oxygen that in a way, even though we talk about this great power rivalry, we don't often look that closely at what exactly is going on inside China. And they've just held the Fourth Plenum, which is this kind of meeting where not actually a
lot happens at the meeting. It's pretty boring itself, but it's all of the planning and the decisions that go into that that then get delivered at the meeting that give us some insight into what China is trying to do. And there's enormous challenges domestically in terms of the economy.
There's a kind of looming pension crisis. Some economists argue because of the aging population, they've got a demographic problem because not enough people are being born's actually, you know, likely to have a reducing population in the years ahead. As well as that sort of domestic consumption is not where it should be, and that does also have broader geopolitical implications because you can't spend as much on your defense advancements and the growth of your military if you're
trying to kind of stock up the internal economy. There was some speculation going into this Fourth Plenum that there might be some hints at succession planning Fashijinping. I don't think anything's come out that's given a clear pointed to that, but there was a pretty big purge of both military officials and Communist Party officials leading into this fourth Plenum,
So you interpret from that what you will. Obviously, there's the question of whether a communist system can engage in active renewal because it's not kind of inbuilt in the way that it is in a democracy. So I guess probably people that are admirers of Shi Jinping might say, well, that's an example of him being both tough on corruption, weary of internal threats, but also eager to make sure that the system itself is engaged in some sort of process of renewal.
Australia's been in a tricky position over the last a little while by having our security partner in the US in a trade war with China, who we rely on for our prosperity. What will Anthony Albanez you be hoping for when it comes to the next chapter in the US China relationship.
Okay, so stability, that's a fundamental for Australia. I imagine that our Prime minister would be hoping that the US doesn't get more aggressive in asking us to limit what we do with China. That's a real risk for us on the security front, that if this kind of trade war scenario were to escalate or to hit another low point or friction point, that we might be asked to limit our supply of say rare earths or iron ore or other commodities to China as part of our alliance
with the United States. That would be a pretty dire scenario for Australia.
I don't think we're.
Anywhere close to that, but I think certainly some of the language that we've heard out of the United States has meant that a lot of people here have been asking that question. What happens if I think Taiwan wasn't discussed at this meeting between Trump and Hijinping, but it's still there. It's still probably the security question in this region of the world, and Australia's position is to support
the status quote. It would be quite easy to rock that status quo, and that status quo shift would have big implications for US, not just in terms of security, but also in terms of our trade relationships. So I think as long as no one's really making a big move to change the status quo. I think our Prime Minister would be maybe not relaxed, but that would probably be a good outcome in terms of, you know, the
immediate next chapter. If there's no big move, no big shift, that's kind of good for Australia.
I guess Albanez would be happy that mum and dad are at least talking to each other again.
Yeah.
I think, look, he's probably just focused on making sure he's not wearing a T shirt when he gets off the plane.
Amy, thank you once again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.
Thanks Daniel.
Also in the news, a seventeen year old boy has died after being hit by a cricket ball. Ben Austin was practicing in the nets in Melbourne's East earlier this week when he was struck in the neck while wearing a helmet. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, but died in hospital yesterday. The incident was similar to the one that killed cricketer Philip Hughes a decade ago. The teenager's family said their hearts go out to the
boy he bowled. The fatal ball and barleyby Joyce is being investigated by the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service following an allegation he shouted at a female staffer of a National's colleague. Joyce denies the claim that he yelled at the warning after she asked him to fill out a leaf form to attend a funeral. Both Michelle Landry, the MP who the staffer works for, and National's leader Dave a Little Proud released matching statements saying they trust the support Services
to do its job and would not comment further. Daniel James, This is seven am. See you tomorrow for a breakdown of the biggest political stories of the week with Press Gallery journalist Karen Middleton. Thanks for listening.