After the Thaw: How to deal with China – Brisbane

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Join us on Wednesday, February 8 at The Inchcolm by Ovolo in Brisbane as we host CIS Scholars-in-residence James Mann and Alice Han, as well as foreign policy and national security experts Peter Varghese and Dr Sarah Teitt for a lively panel discussion moderated by Tom Switzer on Australia’s relations with China as the US-China competition remains intense.

China begins the New Year with a healthcare crisis, a weakening economy, declining population, a property crisis and political protests. These vulnerabilities — each attributable to the Chinese Communist Party – raise important questions:

Is China’s rise to global dominance inevitable? Can Xi Jinping expect to maintain political control across an increasingly restless country? With the very real weaknesses of the real-estate industry, will China’s high-growth economy come to an end despite the abandonment of zero Covid?

Given the thaw in Sino-Australia relations, should Canberra redefine its policy approach away from the more assertive diplomacy of recent times? Would a continuing Australian thaw with China affect Canberra’s alliance with the United States?

James Mann is a multi-award winning journalist, author and the CIS Scholar-in-residence for 2023. He was Chief of the Beijing bureau for the  Los Angeles Times from 1984 – 1987 and has appeared in publications such as The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly and The American Prospect. James is author several books including The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression (Penguin, 2007).

Alice Han is the director of China for global macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm Greenmantle and the CIS Scholar-in-residence for 2022. Her academic work and media publications on China and fintech have been published by the Hoover Institution, Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy.

Peter Varghese is a former head of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Office of National Assessments. A former Australian high commissioner to India, Peter is chancellor of the University of Queensland.

Dr Sarah Teitt is an Australian Research Council DECRA Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland. Sarah’s research focusses on Chinese foreign policy in relation to international intervention, peacebuilding and humanitarian emergency response, the politics of genocide and mass atrocity prevention in the Asia Pacific region.

Tom Switzer is executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies and a presenter at the ABC’s Radio National.