Trade Minister Andrew Robb has assured his Coalition colleagues there will be no changes to foreign investment rules on farmland as part of a trade deal with China.

The Federal Government is hoping to clinch a free trade agreement (FTA) with China by the end of the year and Mr Robb has been in China with Prime Minister Tony Abbott, trying to accelerate negotiations.

Mr Robb has told the ABC he is not considering any change to the policy regarding farmland.

"The $15 million ceiling on farmland before it goes to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) is going to apply to all countries and I don't see this changing," he said.

However, he says the Government is willing to ease some restrictions on state-owned investors under a trade deal with China.

China wants Australia to relax the automatic scrutiny by the FIRB of all investment by state-owned and controlled enterprises, and the Government is considering the issue.

"It is a very important issue how we treat the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China," Mr Robb said.

"We want to properly recognise the role that many SOEs from China have already played as corporate citizens in Australia ... the jobs they've created, the investment that they've driven, the taxes that they've been responsible for, that have contributed to our quality of life.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-12/chinese-investment-rules-for-farmland-wont-change-robb/5386042

The illustration above comes from a Melbourne Punch 1855... The dialogue has been simplified by Gus... (Illustration by Nicholas Chevalier)

Chinese troops could end up exercising alongside the Diggers in Australia's north, perhaps even in conjunction with US Marines.

Prime minister Tony Abbott raised the possibility in the final press conference of his north Asia trade trip in Beijing, declaring that these issues had been "well and truly discussed".

He said Australia's already strong defence ties with Japan and South Korea had now strengthened further.

"Here in China, as a result of this trip, I am now quite confident that we won't just have high level meetings between our respective militaries," he said.

"We will have exchanges and exercises between our respective militaries and also multilateral exercises."

That had to be good for peace and understanding in the region and the wider world, he said.

Abbott said he would not speculate on who else could be involved in exercises involving Chinese forces.

"Thanks to the rotating elements of US Marines in Darwin, there's potential for multilateral exercises in Australia involving the US," he said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/12/abbott-chinese-troops-could-exercise-with-diggers-in-australias-north

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... Like playing in the sand pit of the northern part of Australia — in which we could also invite the North Koreans, the Taliban and the Russians as ferals to chase... Meanwhile, the Chinese and the Americans would shoot blanks at each other in "friendlies" — BUT we can rent the bombing space to end up looking like Verdun on a bad day, for a modest fee that could pay for the ABC which, according to newspapers articles (except the murdoch press), will get its budget chopped, contrary to the no-surprise promises made by our Turd-in-Chief before the election. The man is loopy, but then we must have been loopier to have elected him with his dames and knights declared on the hop. Don't be fooled by the music of FTAs... Most of the FTAs are not in favour of Australia. They are just made so that Tony can claim that "he's made a deal"...