Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, will travel to Beijing for a forum with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, amid concerns about the superpower’s influence on domestic politics and cyber attacks.

Payne will arrive in China on Wednesday for the Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue, which she hails as an opportunity to enhance the relationship between the two countries.

“The Australia government is committed to a constructive relationship with China, founded on shared interests and mutual respect,” Payne said on Monday. “The dialogue is an opportunity to discuss how we can strengthen cooperation and ensure we continue to advance regional security and prosperity in this period of rapid change.”

A report last month found Chinese military scientists regularly work undercover in Australian universities on high-tech weapons and communications research, weeks after the federal government blocked a Chinese telecommunications company from rolling out the nation’s 5G network.

Foreign affairs officials have also been in contact with the Chinese government on behalf of Australians with family members in so-called “vocational training” camps.

At least three Australians have been detained and released from the camps in far west China, which may hold as many as 1 million Muslim Uighurs and members of other ethnic minorities.

Payne and Wang are to hold a joint press conference in Beijing on Thursday.

The foreign minister’s visit coincides with her colleague Simon Birmingham’s first trip to China as trade minister.

Birmingham said China and the US should keep their economies open to lift more people out of poverty, noting that talks between the two superpowers had been constructive, despite an escalating trade war.

“I hope that through dialogue, the US and China can head off the type of escalation, in terms of tariff increases, that has been foreshadowed by the United States,” he said in Shanghai on Sunday night.

“Rather than to go down a protectionist path that undermines the type of trade liberalisation that has been so critical to the economic growth of China, to lifting those millions out of poverty.”

Birmingham also talked up Australia’s “very positive relationship” with its largest trading partner. “I’m an intensely positive person and I’m here wanting to bring a positive message to China, that we celebrate China’s economic success to date,” he said.

“We won’t always agree, no two mature countries always agree on every policy position, and there are strategic challenges that the prime minister has rightly highlighted.”