Professor Jon ALTMAN
ARC Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, ANU
Jon Altman is a research professor currently holding an ARC Australian Professorial Fellowship at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), School of Social Sciences, the Australian National University.
He has an academic background in economics from the University of Auckland, New Zealand and in anthropology from the ANU. Since arriving in Australia in 1976 he has dedicated his professional career to research on Australian Indigenous economic development, mainly in remote Australia. In 1990 he was appointed the Foundation Director of CAEPR, a position the he relinquished after 20 years in 2010.
Much of his recent research focuses on Indigenous development, the hybrid economy, political ecology of the Indigenous estate, native title, land rights and property rights.
Since 2007 Professor Altman has been a vocal critic of the Northern Territory Emergency Response Intervention; he recently co-edited (with Melinda Hinkson) the award winning book Culture Crisis: Anthropology and Politics in Aboriginal Australia (UNSW Press, 2010).
Dr Giovanni ANDORNINO
Lecturer in the International Relations of East Asia, University of Torino
Dr Giovanni B. Andornino is Lecturer in the International Relations of East Asia at the University of Torino and Vice President of T.wai, the Torino World Affairs Institute, with responsibility over the “Emerging Actors” research area.
Dr Andornino holds a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Milan in international affairs. Among many other publications, he is the author of Dopo la muraglia. La Cina nella politica internazionale del XXI secolo (“After the Wall: China in XXI century international politics”) and co-author of L’orizzonte del mondo (“The world’s horizon”). His chapters on China and global governance feature in the 2010 Routledge Handbook of Chinese International Relations 2011 Brookings Institution Press Frontiers of Europe.
Dr Andornino is also the editor of OrizzonteCina, a leading Italian monthly publication discussing trends and ideas regarding contemporary China’s politics and economy, and General Editor of TheChinaCompanion (www.thechinacompanion.eu), a web portal specializing on Chinese politics, international relations and international political economy. He coordinates TOChina, the working unit on China at the School of Political Science, University of Torino (www.to-asia.it).
Emeritus Professor Geoffrey BLAINEY
Australian Historian
Professor Geoffrey Blainey is one of Australia’s most prominent intellectuals. A social and economic historian, Professor Blainey’s work has had an enormous influence on Australian society and politics. Among many works, his A Short History of the World, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History and The Triumph of the Nomads: A History of Ancient Australia have received wide critical acclaim.
Professor Blainey, among other posts, has held the Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University. He was foundation Chancellor of Ballarat University from 1994 to1998, and Chairman of the Australia-China Council from 1979 to 1984.
Peter Yuan CAI
Asia Affairs Correspondent, The Age
Peter is The Age’s new Asian Affairs Reporter and he will start his new role in October.
Prior to joining The Age, Peter was a policy analyst with the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) at the Australian Treasury. He is also working as a consulting editor for East Asia Forum at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra.
He has published on modern Chinese and Japanese history, foreign direct investment and Sino-Australian relations.
He studied history and international relations at Adelaide and Oxford universities. Peter, moreover, was an inaugural delegate at the 2010 Australia-China Youth Dialogue
Rowan CALLICK
Asia-Pacific Editor, The Australian
Mr Rowan Callick, The Australian’s Asia-Pacific editor, was the newspaper’s Beijing-based China correspondent for three years until returning to Melbourne at the start of 2009.
He grew up in England, graduating with a BA Honours from Exeter University. He worked for a daily newspaper in the north east before moving to Papua New Guinea, where he became general manager of a locally owned publishing, printing and retail group. In 1987 he came to Australia, working for almost 20 years for The Australian Financial Review, including as Hong Kong-based China correspondent. From 1990-1992 he was a senior writer with Time magazine.
He was a member of the National Advisory Council on Aid Policy from 1994-96, a board member of the Australia Indonesia Institute from 2001-2006, and a member of the Foreign Minister’s Foreign Affairs Council from 2003-2006.
His book Comrades & Capitalists: Hong Kong since the Handover was published by the University of NSW Press in 1998. He won the Graham Perkin Award for Journalist of the Year for 1995, and two Walkley Awards, for Asia-Pacific coverage, for 1997 and 2007.
Gina CASTELAIN
Managing Director of Wik Projects Ltd
Gina Castelain is a 27 year old Wik and Wik Waya woman from Aurukun. Her traditional country includes the Aurukun wetlands (subject to the Archer Basin Wild Rivers Declaration) and the rich bauxite deposits north of Aurukun.
Gina is the managing director of Wik Projects Ltd, an enabling organisation established by Wik and Wik Waya traditional owners to represent their interests; articulate their aspirations and pursue sustainable economic development on their country. Wik Projects also supports several local indigenous commercial operations including an ecotourism company and an earthmoving business.
Gina’s mother, Norma Chevathun, was a prominent indigenous leader and one of the original Wik native title claimants.
Gina considers all people should have opportunity to realise their aspirations. It is her belief that a sustainable economic base for Indigenous communities will only be realised if Aboriginal people are empowered and supported, at a local level, to build it.
Wik and Wik Waya people recognise China as the world’s fastest growing economy and will be directly impacted by proposed Chinese resource and mining expansion on Cape York. Wik and Wik Waya people will continue to engage with Chinese enterprise where genuine opportunity exists to create positive economic and cultural benefits for local communities.
Fiona CUNNINGHAM
Research Associate, Lowy Institute for International Policy
Fiona joined the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program as a Research Associate for nuclear issues in March 2009. She supports the Institute’s current partnership with the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and previously assisted with the Institute’s research for the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
Fiona holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Politics and International Relations) from the University of New South Wales, both with first class honours. She has also studied at Harvard University and the Renmin University of China in Beijing, and interned at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, International Crisis Group and the China Security Program of the World Security Institute.
Tim Davies
Chief Investment Officer - Asia Caledonia (Private) Investments
Tim has over 14 years of investment experience, with a particular focus on the Asian region. Prior to joining Caledonia, Tim was the Portfolio Manager of the China proportion of the portfolio for Ellerston Capital and Consolidated Press Holdings, from 2004 to 2009. Tim lived in Shanghai from 2006 to 2008 where he established the Shanghai office employing 20 local research staff and invested in Chinese equities listed in mainland China (A&B shares) and Hong Kong as well as through Asian and international exchanges.
Prior to working at Ellerston Capital, Tim was an Associate Director at Goldman Sachs (1998-2001), working on the European hedge fund sales trading desk in London. From 2001 to 2004, Tim worked as an investment analyst at Consolidated Press Holdings, the parent company of Ellerston.
Tim graduated from Monash University in Melbourne, completing a Bachelor of Psychology and Physiology in 1995 and an Honours Degree in Physiology in 1996. Timothy Davies joined Caledonia in March 2010.
Clinton DINES
Chairman - Asia, Caledonia (Private Investments)
Clinton first arrived in China in early 1979 on a Post Graduate Program arranged by Griffith University. He has been living and working in the Greater China Region ever since, the majority of that time in mainland China. During his business career Clinton has occupied management positions with the Jardine Matheson Group, the Santa Fe Transport Group and Asia Securities Venture Capital. In 1988 he joined BHP as the senior country executive for China and stayed with the group for over 21 years, retiring from that role in July 2009.
Throughout his career Clinton has specialised in the business practices relating to negotiating, establishing and operating Sino-Foreign ventures, in the management and development of foreign-invested and operated businesses, and marketing and commercial activities in China. He was closely involved in one of the earliest Sino-Foreign joint ventures in China in 1980 and he has subsequently been continuously involved in a wide range of ventures, investments and business initiatives across a variety of industries and regions in China.
Clinton is a fluent Mandarin speaker and after 14 years in Beijing relocated to Shanghai in late 2002 to run the merged and restructured BHP Billiton China operations from there. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Australian Chamber of Commerce in China in 1993 and chaired that organization from 1998 to 2000. He is a Founding Governor of the Capital Club in Beijing, President of the Executive Committee of the Shanghai Rugby Football Club, a founding Member of the Oriental Mining Club and is involved in various other charity and not-for-profit organizations.
He was invited by the Australian Olympic Committee to be the Attaché to the Australian Olympic Team for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. He was also the only non-Chinese invited by BOCOG to sit on the judging panel which selected the design for the Beijing Olympic Medals. He is currently Executive Chairman Asia for Caledonia Investments, a Non-Executive Director of Kazakhmys plc and of Zanaga Iron Ore Company, a Visiting Fellow of the Lowy Institute for International Policy and a member of the Griffith University Council.
Clinton is married to Jeronia Muntaner, another long-term resident of China from Spain who is a Program Director for the Half the Sky Foundation working in Chinese orphanages. They have three children – a son and two daughters, the youngest of whom was adopted in China.
Professor Peter DRYSDALE
Emeritus Professor of Economics, the Australian National University
Professor Peter Drysdale is Emeritus Professor of Economics and Head of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and the East Asia Forum at the Australian National University.
He is widely recognised as the leading intellectual architect of APEC. He is the author of a number of books and papers on international trade and economic policy in East Asia and the Pacific, including his prize-winning book, International Economic Pluralism: Economic Policy in East Asia and the Pacific.
He is recipient of the Asia Pacific Prize, the Weary Dunlop Award, the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun with Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon, the Australian Centenary Medal and he is a member of the Order of Australia.
The Hon. Dr Craig Emerson MP
Australian Minister for Trade
Dr Craig Emerson is currently the Minister for Trade and has been the Member for Rankin since 1998. From 2007 to 2010 he had portfolio responsibility for small business, competition policy, consumer affairs and deregulation.
Craig holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) Degree from the University of Sydney, a Master of Economics Degree from the University of Sydney and a PhD in Economics from The Australian National University.
He has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Australian National University and has 17 publications to his name, including a book setting out a vision and plan for Australia’s future. Since becoming a parliamentarian Craig has had more than 70 opinion pieces published in national newspapers.
Professionally, he has been Secretary of a Queensland Government Department, CEO of a Queensland Statutory Authority, Assistant Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister, and Cabinet and Economic Analyst at the United Nations.
Professor John FITZGERALD
Country Representative, Ford Foundation, Beijing
John Fitzgerald is representative of the Ford Foundation’s office in Beijing. He develops the overall strategy and direction of the foundation’s work in China, which emphasizes opportunities for poor and marginal communities to participate fully and equally in China’s development. Before joining the Ford Foundation in 2008, John was head of the School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and director of the International Center of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
He served as a member of the Australia-China Council of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and as chairman of the Committee for National and International Cooperation of the Australian Research Council. He also served as president of the Chinese Studies Association of Australia.
His publications include “Awakening China: Politics, Culture and Class in the Nationalist Revolution” (Stanford University Press, 1996), which was awarded the Joseph Levenson Prize for 20th Century China by the Association for Asian Studies, and “Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia” (University of New South Wales Press, 2007), which received the Ernest Scott Prize in Australian History from the Australian Historical Association Prize in Australian History from the Australian Historical Association.
Geoffrey GARRETT
Chief Executive Officer, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Dr Geoffrey Garrett is founding CEO of the United States Studies Centre and Professor of Political Science at the University of Sydney. He was previously President of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles and before that Dean of the UCLA International Institute. Garrett is a frequent commentator on all aspects of US politics, economics and foreign policy in Australian media, including The Australian, Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, Sky TV and ABC radio and television programs.
Among the most influential political scientists of his generation, Garrett is author of Partisan Politics in the Global Economy, editor of The Global Diffusion of Markets and Democracy, both published by Cambridge University Press, and over fifty articles in the world’s leading social science journals. Garrett has held academic appointments at Oxford, Stanford and Yale universities and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy.
A dual citizen of Australia and the US, Garrett was born and raised in Canberra and holds a BA (Hons) from the Australian National University. He earned his MA and PhD at Duke University in North Carolina, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.
Danny GILBERT
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Gilbert + Tobin Lawyers
Danny Gilbert is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Gilbert + Tobin Lawyers.
Danny currently holds a number of directorships including Chairman of the National Museum of Australia and Chairman of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. He is Non-Executive Director of the National Australia Bank and a Director of the Australian Indigenous Minority Supplier Council.
He is also a trustee of several private charitable trusts.
In 2005, Danny was honoured with the Order of Australia (AM) for his services to the law and the community, particularly Australia’s Indigenous peoples.
Paul Glasson
Chief China Representative, Australia-China Business Council
Paul Glasson is currently Chief Representative in China and Director of the Australia China Business Council; Chairman of Satori Investments Greater China; Chief Representative in China of Atlas Iron Ltd; Chief Representative in China to HRL Ltd; Director of Aokai Co. Ltd; Director of Li Jin Capital Pty Ltd; and Non-Executive Director of HighHai Trading Co Ltd. From 2004-2008 Mr Glasson worked together with KPMG Australia building their advisory practice to Chinese companies investing in Australia.
Mr Glasson has been in China for more than thirteen years and is recognized in industry as one of the foremost experts on outbound investments by Chinese enterprises. He was acknowledged in 2009 and 2010 as one of the Young Leaders in China by the Boao Forum; and by the Australian newspaper in 2008 as one of “the Most Influential Australians in China”.
Mr Glasson has been involved in many of the M + A transactions involving Chinese capital investment into Australia, having begun focusing on outbound transactions as early as 2001. Paul Glasson plays a pivotal advocacy role with the Australia China Business Council in promoting bilateral trade and investment ties including running the Australia China Economic & Trade Forum in 2010 and 2011 with Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard MP; Deputy Premier of China Li Keqiang; Vice President of China Xi Jinping and senior government and business leaders; as well as a range of other bi-lateral engagements with Australian and Chinese government and business.
GUO Jian
Contemporary Chinese artist
Arriving in Australia in 1992, Guo Jian’s art practice has been fuelled by his position as a reflective, sharply satirical Chinese expatriate who grew up during the Cultural Revolution. Jian’s early experiences of art were inevitably entwined with communist authority, ideology and militaristic power - his first acquaintance with art was time spent as a propaganda-poster painter for the People’s Liberation Army then later, as an art student in Beijing.
Jian takes the Socialist Realism he grew up with in China, subverts and transforms it, often humorously, into Socio-Realism in an almost celebratory act of protest and liberation. His flat surfaces and heightened colours owe much to the Chinese visual and political language of the Communist era. Underlying conflicting themes of sex and violence, East and West are dominant forces in Jian’s works. Soldiers are captivated and awestruck by female performers, sometimes in quiet contemplation, sometimes in overly excited wonderment, but a sense of false happiness, hypocrisy and hysteria often pervade the scenes.
Jian’s work challenges the ideologies behind both eastern and western cultures and countries. Jian is an artist who revels in juxtapositions and the search for identity: ‘Put your feet into someone else’s shoes to think about the world and your own life differently. For me, if the surroundings change, are combined, are old or new, it doesn’t matter.’
The Hon. RJL (Bob) Hawke AC
Prime Minister of Australia from 1983 – 1991
Bob Hawke was born in 1929 at Bordertown, South Australia. Western Australia’s Rhodes Scholar of 1953, he also studied at Oxford University from 1953 to 1955, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Letters.
Mr Hawke joined the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in 1947 and after being ACTU President from 1970 – 1980 he was elected President of the ALP for the period 1973-1978. In 1980 he was elected to the Federal parliament, and in February 1983 became the Leader of the Opposition.
He led the Labor Party to victory in the general election in March 1983 and, in winning three successive elections, became Australia’s longest serving Labor Prime Minister.
He ceased to be Prime Minister in December 1991 and resigned from the Parliament in February 1992.
Mr Hawke is also engaged in business consulting work and is a co-founder of the Boao Forum for Asia.
Dr Linda JAKOBSON
Director, East Asia Program Director, the Lowy Institute for International Policy
On 1 April 2011 Linda Jakobson took up the position of East Asia Program Director at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. Before that she lived and worked in China for close to 20 years and published six books about China and East Asian society.
A Mandarin speaker, she has published extensively on China’s foreign policy, the Taiwan Straits, China’s energy security, and climate change and science & technology polices.
Prior to joining the Lowy Institute, Jakobson served as Director of the China and Global Security Programme and Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Her most recent publications are China’s Energy and Security Relations with Russia: Hopes, Frustrations and Uncertainties (SIPRI Policy Paper 2011/29 with Paul Holtom, Dean Knox and Jingchao Peng); New Foreign Policy Actors in China (SIPRI Policy Paper 2010/26 with Dean Knox); China prepares for an ice-free Arctic (SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security 2010/2) as well as “The Myth of a Sino-Russian Challenge to the West” (International Spectator, with Hiski Haukkala, vol 44, no 3, September 2009).
Jakobson’s research focuses on China’s foreign and security policy as well as regional security issues in Northeast Asia.
The Hon Michael KIRBY AC CMG
Former High Court Justice
One of Australia’s most eminent jurists, the Honourable Michael Kirby retired from the High Court of Australia in 2009, having been appointed in 1996. Considered one of Australia’s most liberal jurists, he has been a leading advocate of judicial activism in the High Court.
In addition to his judicial duties, the Honourable Michael Kirby has also served on many national and international bodies. He has served as a member of the World Health Organisation’s Global Commission on AIDS (1988-92); President of the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva (1995-8); as UN Special Representative Human Rights in Cambodia (1993-6); and a member of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Judicial Reference Group (2007-).
Warwick McKibbin
Director of the Research School of Economics, ANU, non-resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institute and Professorial Fellow of the Lowy Institute
Professor Warwick McKibbin is a Professorial Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He is also Director of ANU Research School of Economics. He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and President of McKibbin Software Group.
He is a member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Professor McKibbin until recently was a member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council and served on the Prime Minister’s Uranium Mining and Nuclear Energy Review.
William O’CHEE
Former National Senator
Former National Party Senator for Queensland from 1990 to 1998, William O’Chee was the first member of the Australian parliament of Chinese descent.
An alumnus of Oxford University and investment banker, O’Chee is best known for his opposition to racism and, in particular, the anti-Asian platform of the One Nation Party. He did much to raise the profile of Chinese Australians and their contribution to the nation. O’Chee has also been named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.
Dr Martin Parkinson PSM
Secretary of the Australian Treasury
Dr Parkinson is currently the Secretary of the Australian Treasury. Dr Parkinson previously served as Secretary of the Department of Climate Change from its establishment on 3 December 2007.
From 2001, Dr Parkinson spent six years as Deputy Secretary in Treasury with responsibility for domestic and international macroeconomic issues and as Deputy Secretary of the Climate Change Group in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet with responsibility for leading and coordinating implementation of the emissions trading scheme and coordinating climate change policy.
Dr Parkinson was Australia’s G-20, IMFC and Development Committee Deputy and Co-chair of the G-20 Deputies process in 2006. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund on the reform of international financial architecture and in the early 1990s served as Senior Adviser to Treasurer Dawkins.
He holds a Ph.D from Princeton University, a M.Ec from the Australian National University and a B.Ec (Hons) from the University of Adelaide.
Laurie PEARCEY
Chief Executive Officer and Company Secretary, Australia-China Business Council
Laurie Pearcey is a fluent Mandarin speaker and a Visiting Fellow in Pacific and Asian History at the Australian National University. Laurie was appointed as a Scholar of the Order of Australia Association Foundation by the Governor-General for community leadership and excellence in Chinese Studies.
As Chief Executive Officer of the Australia China Business Council, Laurie is responsible for working with the Chairman and the Board of Directors on research, policy and corporate governance as well as managing key relationships with the Australian Government and Chinese consular corps and coordinating the Council’s national engagement with corporate Australia.
Laurie is a Director of the McKell Institute, which is a recently formed progressive public policy think tank designed to develop practical policy proposals to build a fairer and more prosperous society. Laurie is also a Member of the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism’s Approved Destination Scheme Industry Advisory Panel and the Advisory Board of the Australia-China Youth Association.
Laurie has organised several trade and investment delegations to a variety of jurisdictions in mainland China. Laurie has worked on major bilateral visits between Australia and China including the recent Australia China Economic and Trade Cooperation Forums coinciding with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping’s respective visits to Beijing and Canberra.
Geoffrey RABY
Former Australian Ambassador (2007-2011), People’s Republic of China
Dr. Geoffry Raby is a former Australian Ambassador to China. Dr. Raby has had a long and distinguished career as an Australian diplomat which commenced upon his appointment to Beijing in 1986 as the head of the Embassy’s Economic Section. He has held a number of senior positions in Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (“DFAT”), including First Assistant Secretary, International Organisations and Legal Division (2001-2002), Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation, Geneva (1998-2001) and First Assistant Secretary, Trade Negotiations Division (1995-1998). In addition, he was Australia's APEC Ambassador from Nov 2002 to Dec 2004. He is now head of the consulting firm Geoff Raby & Associates. He is also an Executive Director of Riverstone Advisory, an adviser to law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth and a Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University.
Between 1993 and 1995, Dr. Raby was head of the Trade Policy Issues Division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris.
In 1991, Dr. Raby established in DFAT the Northeast Asia Analytical Unit which subsequently became the East Asia Analytical Unit. He was head of the Unit from 1991 to 1993.
Between 1986 and 1991 he served in Beijing twice as head of the Embassy's Economic Section.
Dr. Raby took the post of Ambassador of Australia on 3 February 2007 and presented his Credentials to the President of the People’s Republic of China HE Mr Hu Jintao on 11 May 2007. Dr. Raby officially retired from his post on the 5th of August 2011.
Through his role as Ambassador, Dr. Raby gained significant insight and knowledge into China’s growing economy and its need for raw materials in order to sustain domestic growth. He has gained a deep understanding of the bureaucratic system inside of China and also a significant understanding of the domestic resource industry.
Dr. Raby holds Bachelor of Economics, Master of Economics and PhD degrees from the Latrobe University in Melbourne.
Dennis Richardson AO (2011 Keynote Speaker)
Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AOC
Mr Dennis Richardson is the current Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Prior to his current role, he was Australian Ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2009. He was Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation from 1996-2005 and before that, the Deputy-Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs 1993-1996.
He held various senior public service roles in the Departments of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Department of Immigration from 1986- 1991, including Principal Adviser to the Prime Minister 1990-1991.
He has a held variety of diplomatic posts from 1969 to 1986, including postings to Nairobi, Port Moresby and Jakarta.
Sam ROGGEVEEN
Editor, The Lowy Intrepreter, Fellow, the Lowy Institute for International Policy
Sam Roggeveen is currently a Fellow of the Lowy Institute for International Policy and Editor of the Lowy Interpreter.
Sam Roggeveen was a senior strategic analyst in Australia’s peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, where his work dealt mainly with nuclear strategy and arms control, ballistic-missile defence, North Asian strategic affairs and WMD terrorism. Sam also worked on arms control policy in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs, and as an intelligence analyst in the Defence Intelligence Organisation.
He has written for various Australian publications on US and Australian politics, terrorism, international relations theory, ethics, soccer, cricket, PG Wodehouse and Michael Oakeshott.
Aaron SEETO
Director, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Aaron Seeto’s curatorial work revolves around the Asia-Pacific region and the impact and experience of migration and globalisation on contemporary art practice. As a curator he has developed significant projects with key Asian and Asian-Australian artists for a range of cultural institutions including 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and Campbelltown Arts Centre.
Recent major projects for 4A include The Day After Tomorrow - Shen Shaomin (2011, upcoming); Last Words (2010) a survey of current Asian and Asian-Australian practice presented as an exhibition and publication project Cinema Alley, Yang Fudong - Estranged Paradise (2010); Qiu Anxiong- Nostalgia (2009), and Ming Wong - Vain Efforts (2009); Dadang Christanto Survivor (2009) and SPEAKEASY (2009) co-curated with Vernon Ah Kee charting Asian and Indigenous histories.
He has curated large-scale projects for other cultural institutions (as co-curator) - Edge of Elsewhere (2010) at Campbelltown Arts Centre and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; News from Islands (2007) an Asia-Pacific survey exhibition at Campbelltown Arts Centre and Primavera (2006), Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Seeto is a regular commentator on contemporary Asian Art. He is also currently developing the Public Art Plan for Chinatown for the City of Sydney; is a Director of the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) and sits on the Advisory Board for the City of Sydney Chinese New Year Festival.
Nicola Wakefield Evans
Partner, Mallesons Stephen Jacques
Nicola Wakefield Evans is a Partner of Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Sydney office. She specialises in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, projects, infrastructure and corporate governance. Nicola is also a non-executive director of Toll Holdings Limited, Australia’s largest transport and logistics company.
Nicola has acted for major Australian, Chinese, Asian and international corporations and investment banks including UC Rusal, BHP Billiton, Macquarie Bank, AMP, GE, Morgan Stanley, Fushan, APAC, Lion Nathan and a number of PRC companies, and has held a number of client relationship partner roles for the firm’s key clients.
Nicola has been involved in significant transactions in the energy and resources, financial services, airports, private equity, media, technology and communications sectors. She has experience negotiating and documenting corporate transactions including company and business transactions, joint ventures and restructurings, capital raisings and takeovers.
A key member of the firm’s corporate governance group, Nicola has experience in providing strategic advice to company boards on the conduct of meetings, director and senior executive remuneration, directors indemnities, board composition and compliance. She has written papers and given seminars on corporate governance, directors’ duties and directors’ duties during insolvency and takeovers, on corporate issues in the energy and resources industry and capital markets.
Nicola co-authored an article published by the International Bar Association (IBA) corporate and M&A Law Committee 2009 - Australia: Squeeze-Out Guide
WEI Guan
Contemporary Sino-Australian artist
Born 1957, Beijing, China. In 1989, three years after graduating from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital University, Guan Wei came to Australia to take up an artist-in-residence at the Tasmanian School of Art. He was invited to undertake two further residencies: one at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1992), the other at the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University (1993). Since then he obtained many grants, including Australia Council’s grant for Greene St New York studio in 2003, Cite International des Art Paris in 2007 & Fellowship in 2008-2009. In 2008 he set up a studio in Beijing. Now he lives and works in both Beijing and Sydney.
Guan Wei’s work has a profoundly felt, if implicitly ironic, moral dimension. In their complex symbolic form, his subjects potently embody current social and environmental dilemmas. They are equally the product of his rich cultural repertory of symbols and his informed socio-political awareness and art-historical knowledge.
Guan Wei has held 45 solo exhibitions, including, most recently, ‘Spellbound’ Guan Wei 2011 at He Xiang Ning OCT Contemporary Art Centre Shenzhen; ‘Cloud in the sky, Water in the bottle’ Shumu Art Space, Beijing 2010; ‘Other Histories: Guan Wei’s Fable for a Contemporary World’ at Powerhouse Museum, Sydney 2006-2007; ‘A Distant Land’ at Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide in 2006; ‘Looking for home’, Earllu Gallery, Singapore in 2000; also, Nesting, or Art of Idleness Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 1999.
He has been included in numerous important contemporary exhibitions internationally, such as Shanghai Biennial 2010; 10th Havana Biennial Cuba in 2009; ‘Handle with Care’ Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, at Art Gallery of South Australia in 2008; ‘Face Up: Contemporary Art from Australia’, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin 2003; Osaka Triennial Contemporary Art space Osaka Japan 2001. ‘Man and Space’, Kwangju Biennale 2000; and Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery Australia 1999.
Craftsman House has published Guan Wei’s monograph in 2006. Guan Wei has won several awards, including the 2002 Sir John Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia. His work has been held in major public collections and numerous university, corporate and private collections internationally.
Hugh White
Professor of Strategic Studies and Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, and Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy
Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University and a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
His work focuses primarily on Australian strategic and defence policy, Asia-Pacific strategic issues, and global strategic affairs as they affect Australia. He has worked on these issues for thirty years, as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, as a personal adviser to Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, as a senior public servant, and as a policy scholar and academic.
From 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Department of Defence, and was the principal author of the 2000 Defence White Paper. From 2001- 2004 he was the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). His recent publications include Power Shift: Australia’s Future between Washington and Beijing published as a Quarterly Essay in September 2010.
In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities.
Alice WONG
Head of International Client Services, Bank of Melbourne
Alice has over three decades experience in banking and financial services and is currently the Head of International Client Services at the Bank of Melbourne. She sees her role as unique opportunity to assist businesses, migrants and expatriates as they move to and from Australia.
Her particular understanding of both Asian and Australian cultures has allowed her ‘add value’ to her clients’ banking relationships, whether it be as simple as a hint about etiquette in a new country, or providing networking opportunities between complementary clients.
Alice is the Patron of the Chinese Cancer Society of Victoria, sits on the Committee of the Advisory Board of the Confucius Institute, and is a Board Member of Asialink, the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre, and International House at the University of Melbourne.
She was also a member of the Prime Minister’s Reference Group for the National Asian Language and Studies in Schools Program.
Dr YOU Ji
Associate Professor in International Relations, University of New South Wales
Dr You Ji is Reader of political science in the School of Social Science and International Studies, the University of New South. He has published widely on China’s political, military, and foreign affairs.
He is author of three books, including China’s Enterprise Reform: Changing State/Society Relations after Mao, 1998; and The Armed Forces of China, 1999; and numerous articles.
You Ji is on the international editorial board of the China Journal; Provincial China; East Asia Policy; and Journal of Contemporary China. He is also a member of advisory board for the series on contemporary China, World Scientific Publisher, Singapore.