‘The king of WA’: McGowan moves closer to Beijing

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Between glasses of Australian wine under golden chandeliers at the China World Summit Wing in downtown Beijing, captains of industry, embassy officials and mining moguls gathered to hear West Australian Premier Mark McGowan speak.

“The King of WA,” his Chinese hosts reportedly called him this week. McGowan had returned to Beijing after four years of COVID-induced absence, $20 billion in trade strikes and years of division between Perth and the former Coalition government in Canberra on China policy.

Mark McGowan meets with Boao Forum Secretary General Li Baodong in Beijing. The WA Premier offered to host an event for the ‘Davos in Asia’ in Perth later this year.

In the Chinese capital, he predicted the relationship between Australia and China would become “a harmonious and productive one” and announced China’s version of Davos would be heading to Perth this year as WA’s annual exports to China hit a record $146 billion.

“Perhaps above any other state in Australia, Western Australia understands the importance of the relationship with China,” he said on Tuesday.

The Chinese government’s swag of deals with regional Australian leaders in the lead-up to a series of diplomatic disputes with the federal government gave it years of economic leverage. When Canberra tore up Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with Beijing in 2021, the superpower’s top economic planner suspended the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue. When Australia was hit with crippling tariffs for calling for an independent inquiry into COVID-19, some of the loudest voices calling for the federal government to change its tone were WA’s rock lobster farmers.

“We are acting against our own interests,” McGowan told former prime minister Scott Morrison in June 2021.

In Beijing, he told the audience that WA was back in business, fuelled by the state’s multimillion-dollar investment campaign and a Labor government in Canberra.

“It’s an old trap,” said Feng Chongyi, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Technology Sydney. “It has been a long strategy by the Chinese government to target local government. Now in WA because of the trade in iron ore and coal, there is quite an incentive for the local government to do that.”

Throughout Europe, the US and Asia, local governments are grappling with a push by Beijing to split policy at the subnational and national levels. Federal Labor wants to stabilise the relationship, but McGowan went much further than that by suggesting the national cabinet should go to Beijing.

The event was organised by AustCham, a business lobby that facilitates meetings between Australian leaders and corporate executives in China. In his former life, Nick Coyle would have been at McGowan’s royal table. Today, the former chief executive of AustCham is fighting every day for his partner Cheng Lei’s release from a Beijing jail.

WA Premier Mark McGowan in conversation with China-Australia Chamber of Commerce chair Vaughn Barber.

“I was thinking to myself 18 months ago that would have been me at that table,” he said.

McGowan has refused to raise the cases of Cheng and fellow detained Australian Yang Hengjun in his four days in the country. He has argued that foreign policy is not his domain, despite accusing federal Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie of taking “Cold War pills” and calling for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and every premier to go to Beijing for meetings this year.

“It’s pretty ridiculous that the premier can’t point out the bleeding obvious,” said Coyle. “The ongoing detention of Lei causes significant problems in the relationship.”

McGowan preferred to focus on networking with Chinese oil giant Sinopec, Woodside and Pran, a Chinese importer of sanctioned premium Australian wines that had sponsored the event.

Yang Hengjun and Cheng Lei have been detained by Chinese authorities for more than two years.Credit: SMH/The Age

There was banter about buying vineyards in Margaret River, jokes about living on campus at university in Queensland and praise from a high-flying Beijing-based executive who despite WA’s sealed borders found shelter for himself and his wife when he was locked out of China during COVID.

McGowan told those gathered at another event, the China-WA strategic dialogue on Thursday, that WA had gone further than any other state to keep its back channels open with Beijing.

“Even over the COVID period, we ensured that our language publicly and our work privately was very much designed to ensure that continuing strong relationship that is mutually beneficial both for China and for Western Australia,” he said.

McGowan hoped this relationship would give him some sway when he raised the issue of Chinese trade tariffs and import bans that decimated WA exports like wine, barley and rock lobsters.

Matt Taylor, the Western Rock Lobster Council’s chief executive said he was encouraged by McGowan’s trip.

“At the end of the day, it’s only going to be solved through actions and relationship-building activities rather than just words, so I think it’s encouraging for sure,” he said.

Grain Industry Association WA barley council chair Lyndon Mickel said McGowan’s representations in China would help edge the country closer to removing the tariffs.

“It puts a light at the end of the tunnel for us after the last couple of years of not having one of our major markets,” he said.

Kerry Stokes’ newspapers have given Mark McGowan’s China trip glowing praise.Credit: John Woudstra

But the premier’s trip has also raised questions about transparency.

Chinese government restrictions meant only one reporter and one photographer were allowed to travel with him. They were both chosen from Kerry Stokes’ West Australian newspaper, which gave the trip four days of glowing coverage.

Stokes has millions of dollars in business interests in China. The papers made no mention of Cheng, Yang or any of the other human rights or national security hurdles in the relationship.

West Australian journalists on the flight with McGowan to Beijing did not appear at the premier’s press conference, nor were reporters in Australia asked to dial in.

The questions were left to his press secretary David Cooper. “What are the key outcomes you want to get from this trade mission,” he asked McGowan.

“It can’t be overstated how important China’s relationship is to Western Australia’s economy, but this isn’t just about reconnecting, it’s also about the future, isn’t it?”

The premier was unavailable for an interview during the trip. Other outlets had to rely on edited vision captured by staff hired by McGowan’s office and distributed to networks.

Media expert Tim Dwyer from the University of Sydney said he was not surprised that McGowan wanted to control the message.

“Clearly, it’s not ideal in terms of accountability to only have the premier’s PR rep asking the questions at his press conferences,” he said.

WA Premier Mark McGowan and businessman Kerry Stokes in 2018. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“The fact Kerry Stokes is getting favourable access to China – through The West Australian – to further his own business interests, is also indirectly beneficial for folks in WA.”

The premier gave an interview during his time in Beijing to The Global Times, the Chinese state media outlet whose editor threatened Australia with “long-range missile strikes” at the height the diplomatic dispute in 2021.

The same outlet has reported that Cheng’s closed-door trial was “entirely legitimate” and accused Australia of “unjustifiable interference” in Yang’s case.

Feng, who is friends with Yang, the detained writer, said it was “morally indefensible for Australian governments to normalise relations with China while China holds Australians hostage”.

“The Chinese government knows that as long they can get support from the business community, as well as some government officials, they can move things around,” he said.

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