Albanese Biden Xi Jinping: PM's Washington and Beijing trips an ...

Mr Biden also revealed how Mr Xi had challenged him on why the US “was working so hard” on its relationship with Australia – which is not surprising, as China is allergic to Western alliances and wedges them whenever it can. But it has also let Mr Biden stress that even as the Middle East drags back its attention, the US is a Pacific power.

Mr Albanese’s state visit makes up for a US presidential visit to Australia that was cancelled in May because of congressional budget chaos. He arrived just as a new shambles to elect a US House of Representatives speaker was being resolved, at least for now.

The political theatre contrasts with the drama behind closed doors in Beijing as Mr Xi purged first his foreign minister and this week his defence minister, along with the obvious difficulties he faces in managing China’s property debt bomb.

Beijing has been keen to put the trade war with Australia behind it. As for AUKUS, time will tell – but with Congress sitting again, the goodwill generated by Mr Albanese will help avoid the AUKUS legislation languishing there and weakening his standing in Beijing.

AUKUS is a technology sharing agreement that needs legislators in both countries to reform their export controls to protect America’s secrets. Behind that is congressional anxiety that the US doesn’t have the submarines or the shipbuilding capacity to spare from its own needs. Mr Albanese’s offer to invest $3 billion in US production capacity has underscored how we should approach the Americans not as needy customers, but as partners with solutions.

Some Australians fear that AUKUS will draw us into US conflict with China. The reality is that Australia has never had enough submarine capacity in the first place to defend our waters in any crisis without the aid of US submarines. The sooner we have our own independent capacity to do that, the better.

Mr Biden calls the critical minerals initiatives between the US and Australia a “third leg of the alliance”, backing up his $US2 trillion ($3.17 trillion) effort to counter China on green tech, semiconductors and infrastructure.

China will complain to Mr Albanese in Beijing that this is about “containment” of China. It’s more about the West not being captive to the overwhelming shares of critical minerals processing which China’s mercantilist policies have built up.

Mr Albanese has doubled subsidies for the sector to $4 billion. Yet some of that seemingly will go towards his fanciful plan to manufacture batteries in Australia, with little competitive advantage, leaving less for mineral extraction and processing where efficient Australian miners based in a stable, open economy are a world-class attraction.

And it makes as little sense as the federal government subsidising the minerals industry while also hobbling it with green tape. Global bond markets are set to discipline big-subsidising governments and the muddled policy thinking that goes with them.

Mr Albanese has been up close with Mr Biden this week as the US president navigates domestic political meltdown, and a world on the edge in the Middle East. He is balancing his own bilateral relationships with the US and China, with a chance to show Australia is a constructive player between both of them.