Daniel Andrews’s Chinese influencer Jean Dong cosied up to Communist Party bigwigs
Jean Dong, who helped convince Daniel Andrews to sign up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has rubbed shoulders with senior Communist Party figures.
The young woman who helped convince Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to sign up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative hosted a financial forum for Australian business leaders in Beijing last year, where she rubbed shoulders with senior Chinese Communist Party figures and top regulators.
Jean Dong, a self-proclaimed “influencer”, was a key organiser of the event, which was sponsored by a Chinese financial think tank co-founded by CCP central committee member Shang Fulin.
Mr Shang, chair of the China Wealth Management 50 Forum, is a former chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
Ms Dong was given equal status as the co-host of the event with Liu Xiyuan, the secretary-general of CWM50. Another senior CCP official, the vice-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission Li Jiange, also spoke at the forum.
The Australian delegation included former trade minister Andrew Robb, former Labor MP Lindsay Tanner, Elders boss Mark Allison, BHP Billiton head of policy Martin Commons, Hancock Agriculture chief executive David Larkin and EMR Capital chairman Owen Hegarty.
The forum was held on October 12 last year, a day after Australia’s ambassador to China, Graham Fletcher, hosted a reception for Ms Dong’s BRI delegation.
According to Chinese-language reports, the financial forum was held to “further strengthen and promote Belt and Road construction and co-operation between the two sides”.
Former vice-minister of Finance Zhu Guangyao delivered the keynote address, welcoming the “great opportunity … to jointly discuss the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative” and promote investment co-operation.
Victoria’s Commissioner to China, Tim Dillon, was also on the trip. And Mr Andrews signed a framework BRI agreement with China’s National Development and Reform Commission just over a week later.
China expert John Lee, who worked as an adviser to former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, said the idea the BRI could help Victoria “access deep reservoirs of dormant capital” was flawed. “Read the fine print,” Professor Lee writes in The Australian on Monday.
“About 87 per cent of Chinese funding for the BRI comes from state-owned policy and commercial banks, which are already the most overleveraged financial institutions of any major economy.”
Experienced China watchers in Australia have been watching Ms Dong’s progress closely over a number of years. They describe her self-promotion as “brazen” and consistent with someone wanting to impress decision-makers in Beijing with her network of contacts in Australia.
The Australian revealed last Thursday that Mr Fletcher, as the then head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Northeast Asia branch in May 2018, told Victorian government representatives the state’s plan to sign on to the BRI had “merit”.
The Morrison government has in recent times criticised Victoria’s Andrews government for signing up to the BRI.
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