Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce believes so: within a decade, he hopes China will take an extra million live cattle a year on top of other live export markets – double present numbers.

"I'm looking forward to seeing this turn into a major market for our cattle and putting real confidence into the industry," he said. 

A number of new markets have been opened under his watch: Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Cambodia and Thailand, which all add competition to the live export trade – but none has China's potential to shift the trade's centre of gravity.

The feeder and slaughter cattle health protocol signed on Monday by Australia (China has still to ratify it) will potentially boost the entire beef industry. 

Under the protocol, cattle can be drawn from north and south, and across the feeder and slaughter stock classes.

Consignments must meet a trifecta of criteria. Cattle must be HGP free, resident on the farm of origin for three months, and females must be pregnancy tested empty.

Cattle from the bluetongue zone – most of Australia is – will go through extra checks if they are going into China's bluetongue zone.

The Australia-China live export flowchart has 14 separate operations between the producer and consumer, not counting the internal operations of health protocols. 

"It's not the same as Indonesia," Australian Live Exporters Council chief executive Alison Penfold said.

"This is the most complicated health protocol for feeder-slaughter stock we've got. It's going to take a particular skill set and a lot of rigour in meeting the quarantine criteria.”