Anthony Albanese will definitely meet Xi Jinping on Chinese soil in 11 or 12 days’ time before he meets Donald Trump in India or somewhere (anywhere?) else on the planet. The fact of the Xi meeting has not yet been announced – it’s officially only at the “expected” stage – but this column has confirmed the prime minister’s July 12-18 trip includes a locked-in meeting with the Chinese president.

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For politicians and commentators caught up in the doom-loop of the Trump-meeting-industrial-complex, this will be grounds for weeks of analysis in the lead-up to and following the Xi meeting, all of which will be rehashed ahead of Albanese’s inevitable first meeting with Trump.

Does this mean Albanese is soft on the Chinese president? Too accommodating? That he could have tried harder to meet the US president sooner, for example, at NATO in Holland, just a few days after he was denied that encounter at the G7 summit in Canada? Does it mean (gulp) that he isn’t taking the US-Australia relationship seriously enough?

Of course not. But expect all of this and more to be ventilated in weeks and months ahead.

The truth is more prosaic, which is exactly as the prime minister prefers it. Albanese, like former prime minister John Howard, won’t be hurried or panicked into action. Albanese, who is not one to shy away from comparisons to Howard, wants Australians to be relaxed and comfortable.

Albanese has met Xi once before whereas he has been to the US five times since he was elected prime minister, meeting Joe Biden more than once, and as he has told colleagues, journalists and Australians, he is relaxed about when exactly the first........

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