Prime Minister Scott Morrison's "verbal olive branch" calling for a reset in ruptured diplomatic ties with China has received a cool response by Chinese state media.
In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Monday, Mr Morrison said the Federal Government remained committed to engaging with the rising superpower.
Australia-China relations sunk to a new low during last year, with Chinese officials slapping trade sanctions on Australian barley, beef, wine, cotton and coal after the Federal Government called for an international inquiry into the origin of the coronavirus.
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China is Australia's largest trading partner, taking up 30 per cent of our exports.
Australia has declared it is open to improving dialogue with Beijing but China has to date knocked back the offers.
Mr Morrison yesterday acknowledged that the relationship had changed.
"China's outlook and the nature of China's external engagement, both in our region and globally, has changed since our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was formed and going further back than that, certainly in the decades that have led up till now,' he said.
"We cannot pretend that things are as they were. The world has changed."
Mr Morrison said the both nations had benefitted from previously strong relations.
"But it's not surprising that there will be differences between two nations with such different economic and political systems."
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"Our task is to ensure that such differences do not deny Australia and China from realising the mutual benefits of that partnership, consistent with our own respective national sovereign interests."
But an editorial in the state-backed China Daily criticised Mr Morrison.
"It will take more than a verbal olive branch to repair" the relationship, the media outlet said.
Mr Morrison's speech was "disingenuous", the editorial said.
It also noted that the two countries' different political systems did not prevent Australia from signing a free-trade deal with China in 2015.
The China Daily also said that Beijing had never rejected dialogue with Canberra.
Its editorial urged Australia to follow trans-Tasman neighbour New Zealand in engaging with China.
Last week New Zealand expanded a free-trade agreement with China, slashing tariffs on nearly all its exports to the economic giant.
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