Bradley Perrett | Daniel Andrews, Mark McGowan, Annastacia Palaszczuk: get out of China policy

Nothing these people can do in China can be in the national interest.

They're trying to increase our trade - which means trying to give China a bigger economic weapon to use against us next time we displease it.

So of course red carpets are being rolled out in Beijing (as Peking is called these days) by officials who are only too eager to see our dependence rise.

The simple provincials who are making themselves so useful to the Chinese Communist Party are Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who visited China last week, Western Australia's Mark McGowan, who plans to leave for the Middle Kingdom on April 17, and Annastacia Palaszczuk, who hopes to talk up Queensland's fine products in November.

How does all that square with a comment last year by federal Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell? "I don't think we ever want to get into a situation where we again are so reliant on China," Farrell said, reflecting on Beijing's blocking of our exports in 2020.

So there is a defect in federal-state relations. The constitution makes the federal parliament, and therefore the federal government, responsible for international trade and foreign affairs. But here we see meddling in those matters by state leaders who are quite out of their depth.

There's no federal law restricting their activities. Anyway, what's needed is not a law but just low-key guidance from the federal government and willingness by states to comply.

We don't know whether these Labor premiers were asked privately not to go, but the federal government has notably declined to criticise them publicly. Anthony Albanese should at least be making some subtle remark about these trade-boosting trips being unhelpful.

But maybe he'd get just mouthfuls of parochial abuse for his trouble. Scott Morrison surely would have.

The premiers are accustomed to promoting their states' international trade because Australia is normally keen to export as much as it can within the limits of treaties it has signed.

But the situation with China is different, as the former federal government finally came to understand three years ago.

For decades, the foundation of China's international strength has been to use its enormous market to manipulate other countries' policies towards it. Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to global affairs knows that.

Either these premiers have not paid the slightest attention or they just don't care.

Actually, in 2020 they all saw exports from their states getting smacked by Beijing, which was annoyed by a series of Australian moves culminating in a call for an inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. Now the premiers are trying to set their local industries up for a worse smacking next time.

And there will be a next time. The trend in China's relations with the whole democratic world, including Australia, is strongly downward, as everyone can see. The reduced friction between Canberra and Beijing since Labor was elected is only a lull.

Now, the federal government has itself sought to end trade punishment by China and therefore open up export opportunities again, but that is really a matter of face. If we've been ill-treated, we must demand that the ill-treatment stop.

Last week there was a hoo-ha about Andrews not taking journalists on his trip nor even publishing its detailed itinerary. That was a distraction. The real issue was that he went at all.

Notice that governors of US states are not flitting off to China these days to promote trade.

Official visits to China became practicable again after January 8, when China finally abandoned quarantine for international arrivals. Andrews landed in Beijing just 11 weeks later to promote tourism, Victorian education for Chinese students, and trade generally.

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We can imagine Victorian businesses cheering him on. But even those involved in education and tourism must consider that the CCP can divert Chinese customers to other countries at the drop of a hat.

Australia should not discourage Chinese tourists and students from coming here: it's good to improve personal contacts between the two countries, and many of the students become immigrants. But let's not get our education and holiday sectors more reliant on them.

As for McGowan, he is what they call in Beijing "an old friend of China" - a common saying that basically refers to some foreigner who's been exploited. In 2021, for example, the CCP's media delightedly quoted him telling Morrison a thing or two about being nice to China.

At that time the federal government had been struggling for years against CCP espionage and attempts at influencing our politics, and it was pushing up defence spending to keep us safe from China. So it did not highly value foreign affairs advice from a state premier focused on flogging iron ore.

Chinese officials no doubt will be telling McGowan he's their old friend on April 19 at a remarkable event known as the 5th Annual WA-China Strategic Dialogue. What China calls "strategic dialogues" often don't achieve much, but it sets them up as high-level affairs. For example, it has them with the US, Australia and the European Union, but not with mere Australian states, of course - except Western Australia.

The implication is that China sees WA as especially important - for iron ore, no doubt, but not, I hope, because it reckons our western state is a tool for getting its way in this country.

Let's wait to see what advice McGowan has for running foreign policy when he gets back from his trip.