Aussie Trade Minister Don Farrell is in China today trying to chum it up with our biggest trade partner and restore the damaged relationship. He will co-chair bilateral trade talks alongside Chinese trade minister Wang Wentao – a ministerial match-up that hasn’t happened between our countries since 2019. Relations hit a low point in 2020 over Australia’s call for investigations into the origins of COVID, and China responded by placing trade restrictions on all manner of Australian exports – wine, lobsters, barley, coal, meat… Communication resumed when the Albanese Government took office last year, coal exports to China have already revved up, and the barley ban is also being reviewed. Farrell will push Wang to lift all the restrictions in today’s trade talks. Cross your fingers for him…