Reflections on Australia-China relations: Greg McCarthy and David Walker

August 08 2019

The Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI) welcomed two former BHP Billiton Chairs of Australian Studies at Peking University, Professor Greg McCarthy (Chair 2016-2019) and Professor David Walker (inaugural Chair, 2012-2015), to provide unique perspectives on how the Australia-China bilateral relationship has been discussed in China, the state of the relationship now, and where it might be headed.

Professor Walker and Professor McCarthy was interviewed by UTS:ACRI Acting Director James Laurenceson, and participated in a Q&A session with the audience.

Time: 6.00pm - 7.30pm

About the panellists:

Greg McCarthy

Professor Greg McCarthy was the BHP Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University, Beijing and now holds an Honorary Research fellowship at the University of Western Australia. He is a research Alumni at Peking University and Adjunct Professor at the Inner Mongolia Normal University. Professor McCarthy’s main research interests and extensive publications are on Australian politics and political culture. His research focuses on transitional change within and between nations. He has also explored the political implications of the conversion of Australian higher education from an elite to a mass education system. In addition, he has investigated the international relationship between Australia and China as read through the policies of contemporary Australia governments. Professor McCarthy has had extensive teaching experience on the topic of Chinese students in Australia and at Peking University, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has supervised many MA and PHD Chinese students in fields of inquiry that links governance and post-colonial theory in both China and Australia.

David Walker

Professor David Walker was the inaugural BHP Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University, Beijing from 2013 to 2016. He is now an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne and an Emeritus Professor at Deakin University. He holds Visiting Professorships at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Renmin University of China. Professor Walker is also a Director and Board Member of the Foundation for Australian Studies in China (FASIC) and a Member of the Order of Australia. He has written extensively on the history of Australian responses to Asia. His prize-winning history, Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia, 1850 to 1939 (University of Queensland Press, 1999) has been translated into Chinese and Hindi. His most recent book, Stranded Nation: White Australia in an Asian Region (UWA Publishing, 2019) was released in March.