Had Andrews consulted his own federal Labor colleagues,they might have told him that while the opposition didn’t rule out supporting individual BRI projects,it was its policy not to sign up to the program as a whole. Had he consulted either then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull or his successor,Scott Morrison,they might have told him that the politics on China was rapidly changing.
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Along the way,many theories emerged about why Andrews was so close to China,with seemingly no economic benefit when compared to other states. The links of some of his staffers were put under intense scrutiny.
Andrews’s adviserMarty Mei was named a “special consultant” to the Shenzhen Association of Australia,part of a network of groups run by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. His electorate officer,Nancy Yang,once undertook a CCP propaganda training course and last year posted a series of articles and videos on social media suggesting the coronavirus was created by the United States and transported to China by the US Army. Andrews repeatedly defended both of his staffers.
Andrews visited China six times as Premier and at least once as opposition leader. He also made all of his ministers visit the country at least once.
It also must be said that Andrews’s penchant for centralising decision-making wasn’t confined to the BRI deals;from the Suburban Rail Loop to the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic,the Victorian Premier has always been criticised for avoiding internal stakeholders that may object or have a different point of view.
The Premier always defended the BRI deals on the basis that they would create more jobs and economic opportunities for his state. But he has never been able to name a single job or project that was created because of his decision to sign up to the BRI.
Given Andrews’ lack of consultation,it was easy to see how Victoria failed to read the tea leaves. After all,a year before Victoria signed the MOU,the federal government reached its own BRI agreement with the Chinese government. While this deal only applied to the participation of Australian firms in third party countries,it remains an embarrassment within senior ranks of the federal government and DFAT. It is the deal that dare not be mentioned.
And back in 2017,the federal government was sending out mixed messages on BRI. In May of that year,then-trade minister Steven Ciobo,prior to attending the first Belt and Road Forum in Beijing,said:“Australia supports the aims of initiatives such as the Belt and Road that improve infrastructure development and increased opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region.” It also allowed a 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin to a Chinese-owned company in 2015 – a move that would be unthinkable today.
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The federal government was,itself,slow to wake up to the existential threat posed by China’s growing assertiveness. In 2017,it was forced to back down on a controversial extradition treaty with Beijing amid opposition from Labor and its own backbench.
Later that year,the eyes of the senior ranks of the then-Turnbull government finally opened to what former ASIO director-generalDuncan Lewis described as the Chinese Communist Party’s intention to “take over” Australia’s political system. In 2018,the Turnbull government passed world-leading legislation targeting foreign interference in politics and other domestic affairs.
While 2017 doesn’t seem that long ago,the centre of gravity on the question of China’s rise has completely shifted. This has been sparked by Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea,the democratic crackdown in Hong Kong,the detention of more than 1 million Uighurs in Xinjiang’s forced labour camps,and China’s economic coercion against countries that stand up to it,including Australia.
Andrews wasn’t ignorant of these issues. Last year,fending off criticism about a Chinese company building a fleet of trains for Victoria being linked to China’s mass internment of Uighurs,Andrews said he did not “agree with everything that is done in every country”.
Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson,one of the first federal MPs to call for a more assertive foreign policy towards the CCP,says Australia’s journey on rebalancing its relationship with Beijing and reasserting its sovereignty and interests has “been rapid and welcome”.
“In 2016 the prevailing view in Canberra was to see the relationship solely through economic opportunity and blinkered to some risks,whereas now a realism has now been normalised,” he says.
Labor senator Kimberley Kitching,chair of Federal Parliament’s Foreign Affairs,Defence and Trade References Committee,says it was part of the CCP’s strategy to bypass federal governments and create a “wedge” within a country.
“The CCP used the Victorian deals as a propaganda tool to spruik the BRI to our neighbours,” she says. “We need to speak with one voice here,because if we don’t,we’re allowing a foreign regime to subvert our national interest.”
In 2020,as criticism of the Victorian government’s approach to China escalated,the Morrison government announced new foreign agreement veto laws. The legislation,passed in December,required Foreign Minister Marise Payne to cancel agreements that states,territories,local governments and universities enter into with an overseas government if they contradict Australia’s national interest.
Along with the two BRI deals,Payne also announced this week she was cancelling two Victorian government education agreements – one struck with Iran in 2004 and another with Syria in 1999. She warned other agreements could be announced in the coming months.
Michael Shoebridge,director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s defence program,says it is now impossible to separate security and diplomatic policy from trade and economics.
“Any decision that misses that point leads to really bad decisions like Victoria’s two BRI agreements,” he says.
In Canberra,the merging of security and economic policy was occurring as far back as 2017. Andrews just had to look beyond his own department to see it was happening.