China-Australia relations in 2019 have been marred by controversies, allegations and disagreements over issues ranging from human rights abuses in Xinjiang to a continued ban on Huawei 5G equipment.

Key points: Two-way trade between Australia and China jumped 20 per cent from 2017-18 to 2018-19

Two-way trade between Australia and China jumped 20 per cent from 2017-18 to 2018-19 But the relationship has been strained by spy allegations and the arrest of Yang Hengjun

But the relationship has been strained by spy allegations and the arrest of Yang Hengjun China's influence in the Pacific has also been a major area of contention

Recent claims of attempted political influence through Melbourne businessman Bo "Nick" Zhao and an alleged Chinese intelligence officer seeking asylum in Australia have also added to ongoing concerns over Beijing's foreign interference capabilities.

With the bilateral relationship deteriorating in recent years, Beijing has limited high-level diplomatic exchanges with Canberra — Scott Morrison still hasn't been invited to China since becoming Prime Minister more than a year ago.

But while former Australian ambassador to China Geoff Raby believes bilateral relations have sunk to their lowest level since they were established more than 46 years ago, other observers say they are only becoming more complex, rather than worse.

If Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye's end-of-the-year press conference is anything to go by, the friendship will likely improve in 2020 after what Mr Cheng described as "a mixed year" that "could have been better".

"We expect the relationship will be back to normal, with the joint efforts of both sides," Mr Cheng said in a rare media briefing last month, adding that he hoped there would be more high-level exchanges and visits.

"We hope both sides could meet halfway, and it's important to handle the differences in [a] proper or in a constructive way."

Here we take a look at some of the key moments over the past year and how the relationship may develop in 2020.

Spying allegations and an Australian arrested

Australian-Chinese man Yang Hengjun was detained at Guangzhou in January 2019. ( Supplied: Twitter )

This month marks one year since Australian citizen Yang Hengjun was detained in China on suspicion of espionage.

Dr Yang, a pro-democracy writer, was officially arrested by the Beijing State Security Bureau on August 23 and has reportedly been subjected to daily interrogations.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne has maintained that Dr Yang isn't a spy for Australia, telling the ABC last year that the Government was "very concerned" and "disappointed" to learn he was arrested.

Meanwhile in Australia, there were also reciprocal claims the Chinese Government attempted to plant a spy in Parliament.

In November, the Nine media group detailed claims that a Chinese Communist Party operative offered grassroots Liberal Party member Nick Zhao $1 million to run for the federal seat of Chisholm in Melbourne's east.

It was later revealed that Mr Zhao — who was found dead in a motel room in March after approaching spy agency ASIO — was in jail in October 2018 when preselection was held.

The findings meant it was highly unlikely that Mr Zhao was tapped to contest the 2019 elections, however it didn't rule out the possibility that he was being groomed to be a spy as part of a longer-term strategy.

In response to the allegations, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Australian politicians had reached "a state of hysteria" and "extreme nervousness".

"Stories like 'Chinese espionage' or 'China's infiltration in Australia', with however bizarre plots and eye-catching details, are nothing but lies," he said at a press briefing in November.

It was alleged that Nick Zhao was being groomed as a Chinese spy. ( Supplied: Channel Nine )

While the allegations drew strong reactions from both governments, Allan Gyngell, national president of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, said he did not believe the incidents caused a deterioration in bilateral ties.

"We had problems at the consular level, with Yang Hengjun — in a way, that's not so unusual," Mr Gyngell said.

"You can look back at any time in the Australia-China relationship over most years and there have been consular issues there.

"Those sorts of flurries and things will come up, but I don't think they were an underlying shift in the relationship. I think on the whole, there wasn't a deterioration last year."

Growth in trade, international students and tourism

Chinese students make up the bulk of international students in Australia. ( Reuters: Jason Reed, file )

Mr Gyngell said in some ways there was "great continuity" in the bilateral ties last year with increased trade and continued strong numbers of international students and tourists from China.

According to Department of Education figures, there were some 208,000 Chinese students in Australia between January and October last year, a 4 per cent increase from the same period in 2018.

China was also the largest source of tourists in the last financial year, accounting for about 1.45 million short-term visitors to Australia.

Meanwhile, two-way trade (exports and imports of goods and services) with China grew by about 20 per cent from $195 billion in 2017-18 to $235 billion in 2018-19, according to figures from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

China remains Australia's largest trading partner, accounting for more than a quarter of total trade in the last financial year.

But with the first phase of the US-China trade deal set to be signed in Washington on January 13, analysts say there could be implications for Australia.

John Edwards, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, recently wrote about the potential impacts with China set to buy more products from the US, especially farm goods.

"Australia, for example, is not an important soybean producer, but it will lose China market share to the US in natural gas, beef, wine, and perhaps coal," he wrote.

"[China] will not import more in total so the additional imports from the US are at the expense of other exporting countries."

Mr Gyngell agreed the US-China trade deal could "cut across our agricultural interests".

"So that will be another reason why Australian ministers will want to make their voice heard in Beijing," he said.

'New angles of concern': How did we get here?

Huawei has been banned from supplying equipment to Australia's 5G mobile network on national security grounds. ( AP: Andy Wong, file )

Australia was in the freezer with China even before Mr Morrison was sworn in as Prime Minister in August 2018.

Malcolm Turnbull was the last Australian prime minister to visit China, in September 2016, and since then the Coalition has introduced foreign interference laws and banned Huawei from supplying equipment to Australia's 5G mobile network on national security grounds.

While Huawei pleaded with the Federal Government last November to reconsider its ban in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry — rejecting claims that it had to obey Beijing through a loophole in Chinese law as "unfounded attacks and smears" — there are currently no signs of backtracking.

On top of ongoing tension between Beijing and Canberra, the bilateral ties were further strained this year after Mr Morrison urged Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam to "listen carefully" to protesters, while Foreign Minister Marise Payne condemned a "deeply disturbing" video of Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang that surfaced online.

Liberal MPs Andrew Hastie and James Paterson were also barred from attending a study tour in China late last year after previously being critical of the Chinese Government.

The UN estimates at least 1 million Uyghurs — a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority — have been detained in mass internment camps in China's far-western autonomous region of Xinjiang.

Beijing has repeatedly slammed the claims as fake news, defending the camps as "vocational training" centres aimed at educating and transforming people influenced by extremism, and that many have now "graduated".

Mr Gyngell said the developments in China such as human rights issues in Xinjiang "introduced new angles of concern" and increased the "complexity" of the relationship, but added it wasn't unusual to have gaps between high-level visits to China.

However, former ambassador Geoff Raby told the La Trobe University Annual China Oration last October that this was the longest gap between high-level visits for decades.

"The Australia-China relationship is at its lowest point since diplomatic relations began 46 years ago," he said.

"Never before has Australia been denied access to the highest levels of the Chinese political system as it has been for the past two years.

"It is in this sense that relations are at their 'lowest ebb', notwithstanding the fact that bilateral trade flows are at record levels."

In 2019, a Lowy poll found Australians' trust in China to 'act responsibly in the world' fell to its lowest level since the survey began. ( Lowy Institute )

A 2019 Lowy Institute poll also shows the "feelings" of Australians towards China have cooled to their lowest levels in the 15 years of the think tank's survey.

Meanwhile, only 32 per cent of Australians say they trust China either "a great deal" or "somewhat" to act responsibly in world affairs, compared to 52 per cent in 2018 and the previous low of 47 per cent in 2008.

Melissa Conley Tyler, director of diplomacy at Asialink at the University of Melbourne, told the ABC the way in which the media covered China also made the Australian public "much less comfortable" in the bilateral relationship.

"2019 was a challenging year for Australia in Chinese relations," she said, adding that relations this year could remain largely unchanged because the underlying challenges haven't changed.

She said the US-China trade tensions weren't fully resolved, and Australia will continue to have disagreements with China on topics like human rights issues in Xinjiang.

"What I see is that Australia will continue to have to manage an important but challenging relationship."

Will Morrison get an invite to Beijing this year?

Scott Morrison, right, is still waiting for an invite from Xi Jinping, left. ( ABC News )

Mr Gyngell noted that while Mr Morrison didn't get an invite to Beijing, he did meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang ahead of the East Asia Summit in Bangkok in November.

Ambassador Mr Cheng also cited the high-level meetings between Mr Morrison and Mr Li in November and Vice-President Wang Qishan at Indonesian President Joko Widodo's inauguration in October.

"I think the meeting between Premier Li and Prime Minister Morrison was constructive, where they have reached some important consensus over how we are going to move the relations forward, back on track and to be improved," he said.

But for a bilateral visit to occur, Mr Gyngell said a lot of work would need to be done in advance to craft an agenda because "both sides would want something positive to come out of it".

"Although we have differences with China, there are a range of international issues on which we can theoretically work together on, including on the delivery of infrastructure around the Indo-Pacific," he said.

However, the Pacific has also been an area of contention between Beijing and Canberra, with the Pacific "step up" widely viewed as a response to counter Beijing's growing influence in the region.

Ms Tyler recently wrote the countries could work together in the region to ensure debt sustainability, improve their donor coordination and work on joint projects.

She said "cooperating in the Pacific would be valuable precisely because it is difficult" because "it goes to the crux of many of the differences between Australia and China".

For example, she said China wanted to export its development model and sees its support as "pragmatic" aid, but Australia was concerned about the effect of "China's opaque and unconditional financial support".

However, she said the key was to keep talking about how they could work together.

Mr Gyngell added it was "critical" for Australia to get the relationship with Beijing right because there was no area of importance to Australia economically, politically or socially "that didn't have a China dimension to it".

"Everywhere you turn, from the Pacific step up, to parliamentary elections, to the future of Antarctica, to climate change, to the way in which multiculturalism is undertaken in Australia, there is a China dimension," he said.

"It's all around us, and it's not going to go away, and it's not going to get any easier to manage.

"But we have to manage it because that's going to be so central to our future in so many ways."