Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian PM Anthony Albanese have used the G20 summit as an opportunity to have a few well-overdue beers and chat about early 80s punk.
“We should’ve done this months ago,” Albanese said, confirming that the leaders’ efforts to rank The Pogues and The Pixies albums from best to worst had been very constructive.
While Xi conceded he was more into new wave groups such as The Ramones, the Chinese leader said he loved the Pogues’ early stuff and wished he’d had a chance to see them live. “I’m more a Ramones guy. And I love some of the stuff that came out of Manchester in the 80s, early 90s. But I think we can agree that the first couple of Pogues albums were solid,” Xi said via a translator.
In a post-meeting media conference, Albanese said Australia and China had more in common than most people thought. “A lot of people focus on our differences – the fact that Xi is a Depeche Mode tragic, whereas I am more into The Pixies, for example. But they forget that we actually are both into the Pistols. So we had some encouraging conversations about that”.
The two nations will release a joint statement on their top-ten concerts of all time before the end of the summit.