On May 21, 2018 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met at request with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop of Australia on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Buenos Aires.

Julie Bishop expressed that she was very pleased to have the opportunity to meet with Mr. Foreign Minister. Recently, due to some negative reports of Australia's domestic media, the relations between Australia and China have been affected. She would like to clarify here that these reports are quite inaccurate and do not represent the position of the Australian government at all. In fact, Australia attaches great importance to China and believes that China's development is a major opportunity rather than a threat, and China's continuous success is conducive to Australia and the whole world as well. This is the mainstream view of the Australian government and all sectors of society on China. Of course, as two countries with many different aspects, it is normal for Australia and China to have some differences. However, Australia is willing to actively show goodwill, rationally manage and control differences and prevent mutual misjudgment, so as to be committed to improving at an early date and continuously promoting the forward-looking development of relations between the two countries.

Wang Yi expressed that the meeting at request with Ms. Foreign Minister today at the multilateral occasion of the G20 meeting is not a formal bilateral meeting, but I am ready to exchange views with you on bilateral relations. As you said, due to the Australian side's reasons, bilateral relations have recently encountered some difficulties, and the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries have also been affected as a result. This is not the situation that China would like to see. China follows a development path that is completely different from that of traditional major countries. China never interferes in the internal affairs of other countries, let alone carry out the so-called infiltration of other countries. China's idea is to carry out equal cooperation with all countries including Australia to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. Recently, senior officials of the Australian government including Ms. Foreign Minister have publicly expressed for many times their wishes to improve relations with China, and we have noticed these signals. China attaches importance to bilateral relations, and is willing to communicate with Australia on how to practically improve bilateral relations. What I want to emphasize is that if Australia sincerely hopes the relations between the two countries to return to the right track and achieve sustained and sound development, it must get rid of traditional thinking, take off tinted-glasses, view China's development more from a positive perspective, and provide more impetus for the two countries' cooperation rather than "recoil force".