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Beijing: Premier Jacinta Allan placed her government on a collision course with Canberra over international student numbers as she declared boosting international education the top priority of her China strategy unveiled in Beijing.
In a speech delivered to Chinese and Victorian business leaders, diplomats and trade officials on Monday night, Allan nominated her three priorities for the five-year strategy as “education, education and education”.
Premier Jacinta Allan at the highest point in central Beijing, within Jingshan Park.
Asked whether the strategy would reach its goals without the federal government lifting the cap on international student numbers, Allan was blunt: “I will always say yes to international students and I am not going to be deterred.”
The China strategy is Victoria’s first for 10 years. It has dumped specific targets listed in the previous document and instead seeks to couch Victoria’s push for more export dollars and investment from its largest trading partner in terms of community connection and cultural exchange.
Where the 2016 strategy, released in Daniel Andrews’ first term as premier, set long-term goals to more than double Victoria’s share of Chinese investment, double the value of the state’s exports to China and increase by $1.2 billion expenditure from Chinese visitors, the 2025 strategy emphasises the benefit of the existing partnership and the role of the Australian Chinese diaspora in shaping its future.
Some of the 2016 targets were cruelled by the pandemic, which severed Victoria’s two largest service exports – education and tourism.
Allan at the Victoria-China Education Dialogue on Monday.Credit: Nine News
In 2014-15 there were 439,000 Chinese visitors to Victoria. In the 12 months preceding March this year, the number was 411,000.
Chinese student enrolments in Victorian schools, universities and colleges, while slightly up on the 2015 figure, which involved the previous China strategy, remain below their pre-pandemic peak.
The strategy released by Allan forecasts that Chinese visitors will nearly double to 800,000 people by 2029 but contains no projections on future student numbers.
Allan, when asked if she had lobbied Canberra to lift next year’s national cap of 295,000 places – an increase of nearly 10 per cent from this year – said her views were well known to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his senior ministers.
The full scale of China’s present involvement in Australian schools and universities was revealed by China Education Association for International Exchange president Dr Liu Limin, who told the Victoria-China Education Dialogue that at the end of the last year, there were 211,500 Chinese studying in Australia.
At the dialogue on Monday, Allan witnessed the signing of agreements between Latrobe University, Federation University and the Sunraysia Institute of TAFE in Mildura and several Beijing institutions to expand their exchange programs. The premier also announced the re-establishment of $10,000 Hamer Scholarships for people from regional Victoria to study in China.
A meeting between the premier and China’s Education Minister, Huai Jinpeng, was scheduled for Monday before the strategy launch.
The Victorian government’s strategy document contains no reference to the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s global infrastructure strategy which Daniel Andrews lent support to through a contentious memorandum of understanding signed in 2018, but flags Victoria’s continuing interest in attracting Chinese investment in mass transport and renewable energy.
“The story of Victoria over the last 10 years can be told in two ways: investment in public transport and investment in clean energy,” Allan told Monday night’s reception. “I have come to China to seal the deal on both.
“My China strategy will help business drive hard at deals like those – and I’m looking squarely at clean energy and public transport.”
“In Victoria, we have not turned our backs to China – we have turned to face it.”
The overarching aim of the new strategy, which heavily references the connection of Allan’s home town of Bendigo to the 19th-century gold rush which brought Chinese to Victoria, is to make Victoria the destination of choice for Chinese business investment, students and tourists.
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It emphasises the need for regional Victoria to play a greater part in the future relationship, which the premier aims to expand beyond the state’s sister provinces of Jiangsu and Sichuan to Shandong, Zhejiang and Guandong, and speaks of “empowering” Victoria’s Chinese community of more than 420,000 people, including 170,000 permanent residents who were born in China.
Her choice of front cover image for the 52-page strategy – the Dai Gum Loong imperial dragon which features in the Bendigo Easter Festival Parade – lends a folksy touch to a document that elevates less tangible benefits of deeper engagement with the world’s largest populace and second-largest economy.
“China is already Victoria’s No.1 trading partner but it is more than that – it’s an old friend with those deep, historic ties that go back generations and generations,” Allan said.
The strategy identifies six sectors where Victoria is said to stand apart from other Australian markets – food and fibre, health and life sciences, creative industries and sport, education, the visitor economy and innovation and investment.
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Allan’s week-long visit to China, her first as premier, follows Albanese’s return to China in July and this month’s spectacle of Andrews accepting an invitation – as a private businessman – to join President Xi and some of the world’s most despised despots for a military parade in Beijing.
The launch of the strategy is the centrepiece of Allan’s trip and will set the tone and themes for the rest of the week.
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