Just days after China's Premier Li Keqiang completed a visit to Australia, a major agreement between the two countries has been put on hold in Canberra.
The Senate had been set to vote on a bill to finally ratify an extradition treaty first signed 10 years ago.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was pushing the deal in the morning, saying it would help prevent Australia from becoming a safe haven for criminals.
"It's very much in our national interest for us to have an extradition treaty with China, because we want to ensure that we can continue to have a very close relationship with them on cooperation in counter-terrorism, in consular matters and our relationship more broadly."
But not everyone agreed.
Labor, the Greens and most of the Senate crossbench had indicated they were going to vote against ratifying the treaty.
Within hours of her remarks, Ms Bishop and the Government backed down.
"This morning, the Australian Government decided not to proceed with the ratification of the extradition treaty with China at this time."
The Foreign Minister says the decision came after Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and confirmed Labor would not support the treaty.
But there were critics within the Coalition, too.
Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz was among a group of Liberal backbenchers who met with Ms Bishop on Monday night to discuss their concerns.
"I understand that, in China, the life of a defence lawyer is pretty poor because I think about 99.9 per cent of cases people are actually convicted. I don't think that that is because of the strength and expertise of the prosecutors. I think it's more that the cases and the judicial system may be stacked in a particular direction. So there are fundamental human-rights issues here that are of concern, and I expressed quite a few of those to the Foreign Minister, and we had a good discussion."
The bill is off the table for now, but Julie Bishop says it remains Government policy.
The treaty would let China make official requests for alleged criminals residing in Australia to be extradited for trial in a Chinese court -- and vice versa.
The Government says there are safeguards in the treaty which would prevent human-rights abuses.
The Justice Minister would have the power to prevent extraditions if there were concerns the accused could be sentenced to death or otherwise mistreated.
But Greens senator Nick McKim says those assurances are not convincing.
"They're basically unenforceable provisions, and China, you'd have to say, has got a reputation of simply doing as it pleases once people are within its jurisdiction. So we've seen that time after time from the Chinese government, and we don't believe that the safeguards, such as they are, in the treaty are actually going to be deliverable and enforceable on the ground."
Julie Bishop says she will hold further talks with China's ambassador in the coming days and wants to continue negotiations with the Opposition.
Labor is calling for a wide-ranging review of the entire extradition system before it will agree to ratify any new deals.
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