Penny Wong has met with Australia’s ambassador to China as she prepares to try to break a four-year diplomatic freeze during a visit to Beijing.
The foreign minister met Graham Fletcher at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse ahead of a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“The ice thaws but slowly,” Senator Wong said as the pair walked around the gardens, the temperature a brisk -6 degrees Celsius.
Travelling media seized on the comment, asking the minister whether she was looking forward to “breaking the ice” with her Chinese counterpart.
Partially frozen ornamental man-made ponds and rivulets run throughout the more than 20 buildings of the compound in Beijing’s Haidian District….