Gosh, who knew the Prime Minister would be acclaimed as a ‘handsome boy coming from Australia’, as announced by China’s Premier Li Qiang in the Great Hall of the People?

Was the Premier’s supposed tongue-in-cheek quip, excitedly reported by the Australian media pack travelling with Mr Albanese, another example of the arcane, diabolically convoluted diplomatic speech Chinese rulers have employed for centuries?

‘Handsome boys’ are usually thought of in terms of Peking Opera, not Prime Ministers of sovereign states. Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the sharpest card in the Australian pack, must have silently gritted her teeth as the flowery compliments and opulent hospitality flowed.

A comment from President Xi, reported by the South China Morning Post, was that ‘Australia-China relations are now on the right path’. As long as it is not, we must ensure, the garden path. There are lessons for seeking to re-invigorate the relationship, strategies earlier used on foreigners in China, and remembered even centuries later.

Chinese elites have always hidden distaste, contempt, or anger of foreign interventions by ‘hiding a dagger in a smile’ and using the 10th of the Classic 36 Strategies:

‘Reassure the enemy to make it slack, work in secret to subdue it; prepare fully before taking action … this is the method of hiding a strong will under a compliant appearance.’

In 1842 when Hong Kong was ceded (‘in perpetuity’) to Britain under the Treaty of Nanjing, a major demand of the Europeans, along with the Japanese and Americans, was to recognise the concept of ‘most favoured nation’, whereby any agreement between China and one of the European powers immediately applied to all of them.

Another demand, even more horrifying to the Chinese, was that foreigners be excused the traditional ‘three prostrations and nine ketau (kowtows)’ demanded by imperial protocols, since the foreigners were adamant they would not perform this. In AD 713, according to records, an Arabian envoy from the Caliph al-Walid objected to performing ketau before the Tang emperor, stating, ‘In my country we only worship God, we never do a Prince.’

He only narrowly escaped execution and was banished from China with his mission abandoned.

So, was the Albanese diplomatic mission a success? Have we gained anything tangible, apart from again displaying our wine and lobsters at a Shanghai Trade Fair?

Well, apparently not yet. We have to keep our fingers crossed for good news to come and our affable Trade Minister Don Farrell must keep smiling before any real benefits appear.

Beijing attempted to bully Australia into submission by slashing our trade with China and we should remember that, as no doubt the Chinese will remember that bullying us with economic sanctions does not work. Under the flowery compliments lie the real bargaining issues.

Australian travelling salesmen should take to heart the advice of a Han dynasty scholar, as the Chinese political class does, ‘…if the Emperor wishes to gain the allegiance of other countries he can only do so by convincing their rulers that he possesses the three cardinal virtues … to simulate affection, express honeyed sentiments, and treat one’s inferiors as equals.’

Just don’t kowtow, Prime Minister.