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The year 2022 – the Year of the Tiger – marks 50 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties between Australia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Yet rather than a celebration of the bold and strategic approach to the bilateral relationship launched by the Whitlam government in 1972, we are now entering the sixth straight year of worsening tensions between Canberra and Beijing. The campaign of economic and diplomatic disruption launched by the PRC against Australia is unprecedented in breadth and persistence. Beijing insists it has faced unprecedented provocation. Both sides blame the other entirely. And yet amidst the political turmoil, business and people-to-people ties remain remarkably resilient and upbeat. The factors that drove Australia and the PRC closer together in the past remain present today. But can this last?

The Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI) hosted a panel discussion with Australian and Chinese perspectives, in which participants reflected on the impact that developments in the bilateral relationship had in 2021 and discussed the challenges in the year ahead, as outlined in a UTS:ACRI Perspectives piece by UTS:ACRI Advisory Board member and Industry Fellow at Griffith University’s Asia Institute, Rowan Callick.

Panellists included Dr Minglu Chen, senior lecturer in the China Studies Centre and the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney; the Hon Warwick Smith AO, Chairman of the Global Engagement Committee – Business Council of Australia and Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs; and Wang Feng, Editor-in-Chief for the Chinese-language portal of the Financial Times.

The panel was moderated by UTS:ACRI Director Professor James Laurenceson.

Time: 12.30pm - 1.30pm AEDT

 

About the speakers

Dr Minglu Chen

Minglu Chen is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Her research concentrates on social and political changes in China, especially the interaction between entrepreneurs and the state and women’s political participation. She has published her research in The China Quarterly, The China Journal and Journal of Contemporary China. She is the author of Tiger Girls: Women and Enterprises in the People’s Republic of China (Routledge 2011).

The Hon Warwick Smith AO

The Hon Warwick Smith AO is Chairman, Advisory Board - Australian Capital Equity, holders of interests in Seven Group Holdings of which he is a Board Director, Seven West Media, Coates Hire, Beach Energy, WesTrac and Caterpillar industrial services and equipment in Western Australia and New South Wales. He is a Board Director at Estia Health Ltd, SGSPAA and Jemena Northern Gas Pipeline. He is the Chairman of Ord Minnett.

He is the Chairman of the National Museum of Australia. With Rio Tinto, he is a China Advisory Panel Member and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. At the Business Council of Australia, he is the Chairman of the Global Engagement Committee. He has served as Chairman of the Australia–China Council for over 8 years and was the inaugural Chair of the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations. 

For ten years, he was an Executive Director with the Macquarie Bank Group; Chairman New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory and former Senior Managing Director for the ANZ Banking Group Limited for more than a decade; Chairman of E*TRADE Limited; Chairman of the Australian Sports Commission and an Australian Federal Government Minister with a parliamentary career spanning 15 years. He was also Australia's first Telecommunications Ombudsman and has received a Centenary Medal and has twice been awarded an Order of Australia. 

Wang Feng

Wang Feng has worked for the Financial Times as Editor in Chief of FTChinese.com since April 2015. Prior to the Financial Times, he was the editor of scmp.com, the online edition of the South China Morning Post, after moving to Hong Kong from Beijing in 2012. He was the founding editor of cn.reuters.com, the Chinese language financial news site of Reuters, and Editor in Charge of Reuters Chinese News service. He had also worked as a journalist for various Chinese news organisations including Caijing magazine in Beijing. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.

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