PM on winning strategy for hearts and minds in Beijing

Few do pomp and ceremony as well as the Chinese. As he met with leaders in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was given the red carpet treatment. Rows of immaculately decorated soldiers were wheeled around the hall in perfect synchronicity and a People’s Liberation Army brass band played Chinese covers of Aussie pub rock classics by the likes of Paul Kelly and Midnight Oil. The lavish display may be par for the course for world leaders ushered into the grand neoclassical sanctum of Chinese power. But the warm reception to the prime minister’s…