VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Australia will be looking to stabilise its relationship with China but does not expect a swift resolution to differences between the trade partners when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with President Xi Jinping on Tuesday.

Ties between Australia and China have deteriorated sharply in recent years, and Beijing in 2020 blocked a raft of Australian agricultural and mineral exports over Canberra's call for an inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In June, Beijing's envoy called on Albanese's new Labor government - which came to power in a national election the previous month - to "take action" to reset ties.

Albanese on Monday said there were no preconditions for the meeting with Xi at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Bali.

The meeting is significant for ending China's long freeze on all high-level political dialogue, without Australia backtracking on any of its policies, said Richard Maude, executive director of the Asia Society Australia.

"In short, Australia has not bent to China's will," he said.

The meeting comes as China seeks to enter the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free trade pact, which requires the approval of all 11 members, including Australia.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Tuesday not all differences will be solved in one meeting, although Australia wants to see trade restrictions worth A$20 billion a year lifted.

"Part of stabilising this relationship would mean ideally the removal of those restrictions," Chalmers told ABC Radio.

Scott Morrison's Liberal government had described the sanctions, mostly falling on commodity exports, as "economic coercion" by China.

Australia Foreign Minister Penny Wong in a speech on Sunday, sought to differentiate Albanese's Labor government from its predecessor, which she said had tried to exploit differences with China for domestic political gain.

Australia under Labor would be "calm and consistent" on China, she said.

James Laurenceson, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney, said the meeting matters because Xi is the only person with the authority in China to address Australia's trade grievances.

"Xi might order the removal of sanctions, if not overnight, then gradually over time," Laurenceson said. The meeting also sends a "strong signal ... to the Chinese bureaucracy that Australia is no longer to be shunned," he said.

National Farmers Federation acting CEO Warwick Ragg said: "Farmers welcome any moves to revive and improve access to Chinese markets and are hopeful this week's meeting makes inroads towards that."

Tuesday's meeting will be the first between Xi and an Australian prime minister since 2016.

Australia's relation with China began to sour in 2017 when it introduced laws to deal with what it said was Chinese interference in Australian politics.

Beijing was also angered by Canberra's 2018 decision to ban Huawei from its 5G network on national security grounds, a decision followed by other Western nations.

Two Australian journalists, Cheng Lei and Yang Hengjun, are also in jail in China awaiting sentences after closed-door national security trials.

Chalmers said Australia is "deeply concerned at detention of those two people." (Reuters)

A draft of a declaration by leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, said "most" members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it was exacerbating fragilities in the global economy.

The G20 members also voiced deep concern over the challenges posed to global food security by escalating tensions, and called for the need for central bank independence to ensure they keep up efforts to rein in soaring inflation, the draft showed.

"Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy," the draft said, suggesting that Russia had opposed the language.

"There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions," said the draft declaration, which was confirmed by a European diplomat.

The 16-page document has yet to be adopted by G20 members.

In the first session of the summit held on Tuesday, many countries condemned Russia's invasion of Russia, said a delegation who was present at the meeting.

The summit, which host Indonesia and other countries have said should focus on risks to the global economy, has been overshadowed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Recognising that the G20 is not the forum to resolve security issues, we acknowledge that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy," the draft declaration said.

Russia's foreign ministry said on Sunday the G20 was not the place where security issues and should instead prioritise the world's economic challenges.

The draft document also said G20 central banks were monitoring inflationary pressures and will calibrate the pace of monetary tightening to ensure inflation expectations remain well anchored.

"Central bank independence is crucial to achieving these goals and buttressing monetary policy credibility," it said.

Fiscal stimulus measures should be "temporary and targeted" to cushion the blow of rising commodity costs for the most vulnerable, to avoid adding to inflationary pressures, the draft declaration said.

On debt problems, the draft declaration stressed the importance of all creditors to share a fair burden, without mentioning China, which has been criticised by Western countries for delaying efforts to mitigate the burden for some emerging economies.

"We reaffirm the importance of joint efforts by all actors, including private creditors, to continue working toward enhancing debt transparency," it said.

Wrangling over how to describe the war in Ukraine has prevented G20 ministers earlier this year from issuing a joint communique.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged counterparts at the summit via video link to step up their leadership and stop Russia's war in his country under a peace plan he has proposed.

Russia, which was represented at the summit by the foreign minister rather than President Vladimir Putin, says it is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine. (Reuters)

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has cancelled meetings he was due to have at the G20 summit in Bali after testing positive for COVID-19, according to a statement posted on his Facebook page.

Hun Sen, who is the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), had tested positive before he had held any meetings including those scheduled with French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese leader Xi Jingping, the statement said.

Hun Sen also hosted a summit of ASEAN and global leaders that ended on Sunday in Cambodia. (Reuters)

Up to 7 million North Koreans use cell phones daily, and WiFi networks have sharply expanded in recent years as the mobile devices increasingly became a key tool for market activity in the isolated country, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Martyn Williams and Natalia Slavney of the Washington-based Stimson Center's 38 North programme say their latest study on digital communications in North Korea, which included an analysis of satellite imagery and a survey of about 40 defectors who fled the North between 2017 and 2021, shows a stable rise in cellular subscribers.

Since 3G network services began in 2008, the number of users has risen to 6.5 million to 7 million, more than a quarter of North Korea's 25 million population, the researchers said.

"More than 90% of the people who participated in the survey reported using the phone at least daily, and most of the calls were made to family members and traders," Slavney told a briefing.

They showed an estimated coverage map of North Korea's cellular network by identifying base stations, accompanying antennas and solar panels from satellite images, which Williams said suggested the service is available not only in cities but also "deep into the rural areas."

"The cellular coverage is still expanding, sometimes we're finding base stations where if you look at the same area two years ago, the antenna was not there," he said.

The country's antiquated 3G network and limits on foreign investment in upgrades because of sanctions over its weapons programmes has prompted the emergence of faster WiFi networks around the country, Williams said.

The WiFi networks do not offer any Internet access but provide connections to domestic services, especially scientific databases for the research community, he added.

Poor infrastructure means there are few landlines, the researchers said, so mobile phones fill gaps and serve as a critical tool for participating in a private market economy, which has become a key source of income for many.

The private sector has overtaken state-led agents to become North Korea's biggest economic actor in recent years, with its rationing system crumbling and leader Kim Jong Un allowing markets abhorred by his father.

"For the last five to 10 years, the rise of the private economy and private marketplaces was one of the biggest changes in the country," Williams said. "In a way, one of the pillars of the entire market economy is the wide availability of basic telephone and text messaging." (Reuters)