Several diplomatic dramas over the past few weeks have sent relations with China into the deep freeze.

But at a summit in Sydney this week, visiting Chinese entrepreneurs said they just want to get on with business.

More than 220 Australian and Chinese business leaders gathered over two days, as part of the China Zhejiang–Australia Trade and Investment Symposium, with the sole aim of connecting investors with good ideas.

This was the largest delegation of Chinese business people to come to Australia since diplomatic tensions began to rise.

Some are describing diplomatic relations between Australia and China as being in tatters.

But here, at this gathering, it was nothing short of a lovefest between the two nations.

"Australia is a country with favourable investment and tax policies, and so we can see it is very attractive country for China," said Zhang Qingshan, the leader of the delegation and a Chinese Communist party provincial leader.

While Australia's business backdrop may be attractive to China, diplomatic relations have been rather frosty.

Indeed, last week Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was in Buenos Aires trying to repair Australia's diplomatic relationship with China.

That was before West Australian senator Andrew Hastie, using parliamentary privilege, accused the Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak Wing of being a co-conspirator in the bribery of a UN General Assembly president.

There are also longstanding tensions over Australia's stance on Beijing's militarisation of the South China Sea.

Business community's response

Mr Zhang said his purpose in Sydney was to "promote the bi-lateral economic friendship".

"We hope that through the activities that we're holding today that we can increase the mutual trust and mutual understanding between the two countries. "If we increase people-to-people communication, we can surely avoid such kind of sadness. "You can see we have an agreement signing between companies today — it's just one example, and we are confident we can see more."

And there is in fact a good chance there will be more.

Chen Yuyang, the chairman of Top Cloud Agri Technology Co, was primed and ready to do business in Australia.

He believes the rising tensions between Beijing and Canberra are all just a "misunderstanding".

"I see great potentials for us to align the potential agriculture technologies, as well as to strengthen our agriculture trade and investment," Mr Chen said. "I do believe that we can press ahead the bilateral trade investment in related areas and fields. "At present we may have come across some misunderstandings between the two countries. "Maybe in the short term there some conflicts and problems, however, me, I personally will see those problems rationally."

But even the alchemy of finance can't erase the consequences of failed diplomacy.

China's economic leverage

Just this week there were reports of cases of Australian wine piling up at Chinese ports, which demonstrated China's willingness to use its economic leverage to force political change.

Then came the news that a top-secret report pointed to Chinese government influence within Australia's political parties for the past decade.

But business and trade seem to remain quarantined from this.

Former trade minister Craig Emerson claimed there was no trade problem between the two countries, and that the summit was part of a broader push by China to further open up its economy.

He is currently president of the Australia China Business Council (NSW branch).