Foreign Minister Penny Wong will travel to Beijing to mark the 50th anniversary of Australia-China diplomatic relations.

Senator Wong has been invited by the Chinese government to meet with her counterpart Wang Yi and hold the sixth Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, which was last held in 2018.

She will leave for China on Tuesday, and return home by the end of the week.

Senator Wong’s invitation signals a major step forward in diplomatic relations and follows a meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in November.

Senator Wong also met Mr Wang at the UN General Assembly in September.

She will be the first Australian minister to visit China since relations between Beijing and Canberra soured. The last Australian minister to travel to China was when then-trade minister Simon Birmingham, in November 2019.

Tweet from @AlboMP

Trade is expected to be high on Senator Wong’s agenda, as Australia continues its push for China to remove billions of dollars in sanctions imposed since 2020.

In a joint statement, Mr Albanese and Senator Wong recognised former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam’s “bold” decision in 1972 to recognise the importance of engagement and cooperation between Australia and China.

Senator Wong’s trip comes on the eve of the 50-year anniversary of Mr Whitlam’s move.

“In the decades since, China has grown to become one of the world’s largest economies and Australia’s largest trading partner,” the statement said.

“Australia seeks a stable relationship with China; we will cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest.”

On Monday, Senator Birmingham – the opposition’s foreign affairs spokesman – welcomed news of the ministerial talks.

“This opportunity … provides a chance to try to seek and achieve progress against some of the difficult things in the relationship, such as China’s unfair and unjustified trade sanctions against Australia,” he told Sky News.

“It’s appropriate that Australia and China mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations.”

Senator Birmingham said the talks would also be an opportunity to bring up the issue of detained Australians in China, such as journalist Cheng Lei.

He said the news of the bilateral talks was a sign the relationship between the two countries was heading in the right direction.

“We don’t expect everything is solved instantly, but there is a reality to the fact that the government has benefited from China’s decision to cease their counterproductive ban on ministerial level dialogue,” Senator Birmingham said.

“As we’re seeing this settle into more of a pattern of discussion and dialogue, the test will be whether we see progress in the removal of those unfair trade sanctions.”

– with AAP