China’s Li in Australia trade talks amid Trump fears

CANBERRA: Australia urged China Thursday to press ahead with economic reforms as Premier Li Keqiang began a trade-focused visit amid growing fears of a US slide towards protectionism.

China is Australia´s largest trade partner and its economic importance has grown in the Donald Trump era after the US president ripped into Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a decorum-breaking phone call, fraying relations.

Turnbull said he hoped China and Australia could sign new bilateral agreements at a time of "increasingly loud voices calling for a retreat from the project of global economic liberalisation into protectionism". Li´s trip comes as the United States challenges longstanding global principles surrounding free trade, refusing to renew past anti-protectionist pledges.

"My government remains committed to championing trade liberalisation," said Turnbull in a column for the Australian Financial Review, adding that he welcomed President Xi Jinping´s recent robust defence of open markets. "It is critical, not only to China but also to the Australian and global economies, that China moves ahead with its substantial reform agenda."