Why the secrecy on your trip to China, Daniel Andrews?

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews during a previous visit to China, at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Daniel Andrews says the key focus of his ‘‘back-to-back’’ meetings in China will be attracting more Chinese students to Melbourne.

Currently, 42,000 Chinese students are here helping to generate $14bn in economic activity and the Premier has an ambitious target to increase this number to at least 62,000.

Why then aren’t any vice-chancellors of Melbourne’s internationally renowned universities joining the Premier for his four-day mission to Beijing, Jiangsu and Sichuan province?

The Premier’s office said on Monday no university chiefs would join the trip and he would be accompanied by Jeremi Moule, secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, and two members of the Premier’s private office and receive on-the-ground support from Victoria’s commissioner for Greater China.

Daniel Andrews in China in 2015. Picture: Instagram

Higher education industry figures expressed surprise at the lack of involvement of vice-chancellors or peak education body representatives on the trip.

This will be Andrews’ seventh trip to China and his first since the pre-pandemic days of 2019.

On face value, the Premier’s trip to China makes sense. In addition to foreign students, China is a massive player in the state’s tourism, wine and food industries and Chinese-controlled firms are massive investors in infrastructure developments.

But the mission is attracting controversy because for some reason the Premier is being sneaky about the trip. It was announced on Saturday and Andrews would say only that the final preparations were finalised in recent weeks. No list of who he is meeting in these ‘‘back-to-back’’ meetings has been released.

Andrews says the trip is not about signing big deals and is all about sending China a message that Victoria is open for business.

The Premier is the first state leader to visit China since the AUKUS deal was signed, and the geopolitics of the Australia-China relationship is fundamentally different to when he last visited in 2019.

Yet these global tensions should not prevent state leaders from pursuing strong economic ties with China.

Indeed, Andrews started visiting China when he was opposition leader between 2010 and 2014.

That’s why there is no logical reason for the Premier to cloak the trip in secrecy.

All this own goal has achieved is play to a suspicion that perhaps there is a secret agenda around trying to get access to Chinese investment to prop up the state budget, which is heading towards a $165bn state debt and facing major cost blowouts in road, rail and tunnel projects, some of which are being developed by companies whose owners are based in China.

Remember, this is against a backdrop of Andrews defying Australia’s national interest to strap on the Chinese Communist Party’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Is he seeking to cut a side deal to tap Chinese investment in his government’s major projects?

Perhaps the explanation is as simple as this; now the Premier has won a third election, he doesn’t even have to pretend to be transparent any longer.