Penny Wong says "hard issues" in the China relationship will take time to resolve and she will raise with Beijing the $20 billion trade sanctions on the country and the detention of Australians.
The foreign minister will travel to China on Wednesday to meet her counterpart Wang Yi for the sixth Australia-China Foreign and Strategic Dialogue.
"Dialogue itself is central to stabilising the relationship ... many of the hard issues in the relationship will take time to resolve in our interests," she told reporters in Canberra.