that followed a souring of relations between canberra and beijing. female: the foreign minister, marise payne she trusts china over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. stephen: australia's call for a covid inquiry appeared to be a catalyst. female: a chinese analyst has described the foreign minister marise payne's calls for an independent inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus outbreak and the global response as deplorable. stephen: the reality is the tensions are deep and longer standing. rory: it's a big mistake to think that this is simply because of the way the australian government responded to the pandemic, the way the australian government very bluntly called for an international investigation into the origins of covid-19. if it wasn't that, it would have been something else. there's been an accumulation of friction points between australia and china, i'd say at least over the past five years, that go to fundamental differences of interests and of political values. jane: if you look at the downward trend in political relations, it actually goes back, i think, to a high poin