This book launch roundtable marks the publication of Engaging China: How Australia Can Lead the Way Again (Sydney University Press 2023). 2022 marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Australia-China diplomatic relationships. Since Labour regained power in May 2022, Canberra and Beijing have sought to stabilize bilateral relations with the resumption of bilateral official visits and broader dialogues. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese plans to visit China later this year. These developments are to be welcomed; however, major challenges remain. The roundtable features some of the contributors to the book, who will present the major findings of their research covering a wide range of issues areas: from diplomatic and security challenges to economic and business connections and opportunities, and to education and media. It will both take stock of the developments in recent decades and discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead for Australia and China to navigate and manage a complex relationship.
Date: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Time: 5:00PM – 6:30PM AEDT
Venue: Lecture Theatre 321, Susan Wakil Health Building, The University of Sydney
Western Avenue Camperdown, NSW 2050 (Map)
University of Sydney CSC Book Launch
Ien Ang, Hans Hendrischke, Glenda Korporaal, Wei Li, Brendon O’Connor, Wanning Sun, Anthony Welch, Jingdong Yuan
About the panellists
Ien Ang is Distinguished Professor of Cultural Studies at Western Sydney University, where she was the founding director of the Institute for Culture and Society. Her work has focused on cultural diversity and globalisation, Asia–Australia relations, immigration and urban change, and the politics of media and cultural institutions. An important strand of her work engages with the complexities of Chinese Diaspora and identity. She is the author of several books, including On not speaking Chinese: living between Asia and the West (2001) and, most recently, the co-authored Chinatown unbound: trans-Asian urbanism in the age of China (2019).
Hans Hendrischke is Professor of Chinese Business and Management at the University of Sydney Business School. He leads the school’s China Research Network and leads the Digital Economy Research Group of the University’s China Studies Centre. Educated at universities in Germany, Taiwan and Japan, Hans did his postgraduate research at the Contemporary China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He speaks and writes fluent Chinese and is a frequent commentator on China business and Australia–China business relations in national and international media. His team reports with KPMG on Demystifying Chinese investment in Australia receive wide international coverage. Hans lived in China from 1979, working for the diplomatic service and in the finance industry. In his academic career he was director of the Centre for Chinese Political Economy at Macquarie University, co-director of the University of New South Wales – University of Technology Sydney Centre for Research on Provincial China and head of school at University of New South Wales, and director of the University of Sydney Confucius Institute.
Glenda Korporaal OAM is a Sydney-based writer and journalist. She has been visiting China since 1978 when she went on a “farm study tour”. She has worked as a correspondent for the Australian Financial Review in London, Washington and New York, returning to Sydney as the first woman deputy editor of the paper. She has worked in Hong Kong and Singapore and became the China correspondent for The Australian in 2018 and 2019. She has worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, the Bulletin magazine and The Australiannewspaper where her roles have included editing the paper’s monthly business magazine, The Deal, and becoming associate editor (business). The author of several books, she is now a columnist for the paper and an industry fellow at the Australia–China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney. She was awarded an OAM for her contribution to newspaper journalism in 2019.
Wei Li is a Lecturer in International Business at the University of Sydney Business School. Dr Li is a core member of the KPMG/Business School research team and leads the Chinese outbound investors’ survey project. She co-developed the KPMG/University of Sydney database on Chinese outbound direct investment in Australia. She previously held the Australian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industries research fellowship. She has worked as a researcher on water conservation and renewable energy for the World Bank, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection and Renmin University of China. She has published articles on green innovation and solar energy, environmental impact assessment, governance of water resources, small- and medium-enterprise finance, and Chinese investment in Australia.
Brendon O’Connor is a Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations and in the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and Deputy Head (Education), School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He has authored two books, co-authored two books, edited nine books and numerous articles on anti-Americanism, US foreign relations, and US welfare policy. His most recent books are Ideologies of American foreign policy (Routledge, 2019) (co-authored with John Callaghan and Mark Phythian) and Anti-Americanism and American exceptionalism: prejudice and pride about the USA (Routledge, 2020). He has an article on US alliances in the Fall 2020 edition of Political Science Quarterly.
Wanning Sun is a Professor of Media and Communication at University of Technology Sydney and Deputy Director, Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at UTS. She is a specialist in a number of areas, including Chinese media and cultural studies; rural-to-urban emigration and social change in contemporary China; and soft power, public diplomacy and diasporic Chinese media. She is the author of three monographs: Leaving China: media, migration, and transnational imagination(2002); Maid in China: media, morality, and the cultural politics of boundaries (2009); and Subaltern China: rural migrants, media, and cultural practices (2014). Two of her edited volumes – Media and the Chinese diaspora: community, communication and commerce (2006) and Media and communication in the Chinese diaspora: rethinking transnational’s (2016) – document the history and development of Chinese language media in Australia, North America, Europe, Africa, South America and South-east Asia.
Anthony Welch is Professor of Education (emeritus) at the University of Sydney. Numerous of his publications address education reforms, principally within Australia and the Asia–Pacific, mainly on higher education. He has advised state, national and international agencies, governments, institutions and foundations in Australia, the United States, Europe and East, Central and South-east Asia. His work appears in numerous European and Asian languages, and he has been a Visiting Professor in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Malaysia, Turkey, Sweden and Hong Kong. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, DAAD Scholar, Carnegie Foundation, INRP and Tübitak awardees, among others. His recent books include Measuring up in higher education (Palgrave 2021) and International faculty in Asia in comparative global perspective (Springer 2021).
Jingdong Yuan is Associate Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, and incoming Director, China and Asia Security Programme, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Dr Yuan’s research focuses on Indo–Pacific security, Chinese foreign policy, Sino–Indian relations, China–European Union relations, and nuclear arms control and non-proliferation. He has held visiting appointments at the National University of Singapore, University of Macau, East–West Center, National Cheng-chi University, Mercator Institute for China Studies, Fudan University, Berlin Social Sciences Centre (WZB) and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). He is the co-author of Chinese cruise missiles: a quiet force-multiplier (2014) and China and India: cooperation or conflict? (2003), and co-editor of Trump’s America and international relations in the Indo–Pacific (2021) and Australia and China at 40 (2012). His publications have appeared in numerous journals and edited volumes. He is currently completing a book manuscript on China–South Asian relations.
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