There Are Questions That Need Answering Dan Andrews

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews speaks to media during a press conference at Monash University Clayton campus in Melbourne, Australia, on April 2, 2023. AAP Image/Julian Smith

Commentary

The secretive visit by the Victorian premier to China raises issues that have not been answered by Daniel Andrews.

Flying out of the country with just two days’ notice to the community, the premier was not accompanied by any media or industry representatives, despite the claim that the mission was to discuss trade and cultural ties and the return of Chinese students to Victoria.

One of the first meetings was with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC). Like any official association in China, the CPAFFC is an arm of the communist regime.

Three years ago, the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, described the association as “a Beijing-based organisation tasked with co-opting subnational governments.” Pompeo asserted that the organisation has “sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.”

The CPAFFC is linked to the United Front Work Department, another organ of the communist party. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stressed that it’s work is “primarily political.”

Xi has stated that being good at befriending prominent non-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) individuals was important to improving the work of the United Front, adding that the organisation “plays a big role” in winning over more people to the CCP cause.

Victorian Labor Links With the CCP

The secretive United Front is active in many countries, including Australia, influencing diaspora groups, the media, and prominent public leaders.

The Victorian government under the Labor Party has developed close links with the CCP. The state entered into an arrangement under China’s Belt and Road Initiative that makes an explicit reference to Xi Jinping’s strategic “New Era.”

The agreement committed Victoria to “the aspiration of promoting the silk road spirit centring on peace, co-operation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefits and aspiration to further enrich such spirit in keeping with the New Era”—a reference to Xi Jinping’s “New Era for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.”

Workers take down a Belt and Road Forum panel outside the venue of the forum in Beijing on April 27, 2019. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

According to China scholar Prof. John Fitzgerald, “based on available public information, it appears that Premier Andrews didn’t seek advice from departmental experts in his own government, that he circumvented his cabinet, and that he employed external consultants who most likely held the same views as him and didn’t question his direction and strategy.”

Writing in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute report, “Taking the Low Road: China’s Influence in Australian States and Territories,” Fitzgerald also highlighted how multicultural officers in the Victorian government played a key role.

A number of these individuals served in the premier’s office or on government bodies.

The fact that the premier was not accompanied by any industry representatives is curious, given the stated reasons for the trip.

International students are already a large proportion of enrollees at Australian universities.

More than 40 percent of students at both Melbourne and Monash Universities are from overseas, with about 40 percent of these being Chinese.

In 2021, Melbourne University alone derived $856 million (US$571 million) from fee-paying overseas students. No wonder these universities were hit so hard by the impact of COVID-19.

Yet they have been slow to learn the lesson of diversifying their intake.

What Was the Goal?

Victoria is carrying a huge debt, which in June 2022 was larger than the combined total of New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania.

It was $121 billion at the end of 2022 and is predicted to rise to $167 billion by 2025-26. Debt per Victorian is now more than $15,000, up from $3,500 in 2014.

While it is appropriate for the premiers to promote their states, many questions arise about this trip.

Is the premier planning more borrowing? Is he placing too much reliance on trade with China? The President of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, warned European nations last week not to become overly economically reliant on China and become subject to economic coercion like Australia.

“We have to recognise that the world and China have changed significantly in the last three years,” she said.

She implied that the EU could terminate pursuing a landmark trade deal with China, which was agreed upon in 2020 but subsequently stalled by the European Parliament after some of its members were sanctioned by Beijing.

The Chinese Communist Party’s “clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its centre ... We have seen the show of friendship in Moscow which says a thousand words about this new vision for the international order,” she said.

So why didn’t the premier take the media with him? Because they would ask about these issues?

Perhaps they would ask about China’s appalling human rights record or about the plight of detained Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.