This was causing the US-led mission to be reconfigured. Tony Abbott meets with leaders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement in Beijing. Credit:Cameron Richardson "As we are setting that up, I am having conversations with Australia and other coalition partners that are already committed to putting trainers in to see how they can supplement and work with us in this overall effort," he said. The two men held their second bilateral discussion this year, meeting at the super-secure US Embassy in Beijing. The talks preceded the gala leaders dinner on Monday night in the Chinese capital.

Competing multilateral trade models are being pushed at the meeting almost as a proxy campaign for who can lead the world on the issue between the US's Trans Pacific Partnership, which currently excludes China and Beijing's Free Trade Agreement Asia Pacific. Strategic alliances are not what they used to be between Tony Abbott and Barack Obama. Credit:Cameron Richardson Australia supports both measures arguing they are not mutually exclusive. Mr Abbott denied that a special meeting of TPP counties held on the sidelines of the APEC summit was either provocative or counterproductive. "I think that everyone wants to see freer trade in the Asia-Pacific region," he said. "My understanding is that once the TPP has been concluded, other countries are welcome to accede to it, also a kind of a parallel process is the closer economic partnership negotiations with I have been led by China and Australia and many other TPP members are in that, too. I think that all of us are going forward together, to try to boost freer trade, whether we're do it bilaterally, plurilaterally multilaterally or indeed unilaterally, we are all trying to boost freer trade, China - the US, Japan, Australia, we are all trying to get freer trade."

Mr Abbott also weighed into simmering rivalry between China and Australia's closet North Asian power, Japan. "All of us will advance together or none of us will advance at all." So the rise of China is good for Australia because we now do $11 - $150 billion worth of trade business with China every year. The rise of China has been good for Japan because China is Japan's biggest customer. The rise of China has been good for the US. I think in many respects they are each other's biggest customers as well. So , I don't see this in negative terms, I see it very much in positive terms." Speaking ahead of his one-on-one with President Obama, Mr Abbott said Australia's Iraq commitment remained on track even as the US upped its troop commitment. "We are focused on getting our Special Forces into Iraq because it is absolutely vital that the world sees and sees quickly that the ISIL death cult can be beaten, and that's what we're on about, we're on about disrupting and degrading the ISIL death cult and very happy to be working with the US on this important global concern."

The other big issue on the sidelines of the APEC meeting is Mr Abbott's requested bilateral with Russian strongman, President Vladimir Putin. And while the Australian had promised to "shirtfront" the Russian, his language noticeably softened on the eve of their confrontation. That meeting is set for Tuesday with Mr Abbott stressing other aspects of the relationship and even praising Russian efforts to assist at the MH17 crash site. "But as is well-known, 38 Australians were murdered when flight MH 17 was brought down. It wasn't a tragedy, it is an atrocity, it was a crime, and Russia has said that it will do everything to bring the perpetrators to justice. Good on Russia for saying that and I will just be looking for an assurance from the President that what they said then, they meant, and what they said then is still what they say now." Follow us on Twitter