China Panic: Australia’s alternative to paranoia & pandering
Historian David Brophy will launch his new book and discuss the Australia-China debate and a new way to approach Australia's China policy with UTS:ACRI Emeritus Professor David Goodman.
As Australia’s debate on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues to intensify, there are oft calls made for a new approach to PRC policy. What might such an alternative look like?
A new book by Dr David Brophy, senior lecturer on modern Chinese history at the University of Sydney, China Panic: Australia’s Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering (Black Inc), makes the case that ‘instead of punitive measures that restrict rights and stoke suspicion of minorities – moves that would only make Australia more like China – we need democratic solutions that strengthen Australian institutions and embrace, not alienate, Chinese Australians. Above all, we need forms of international solidarity that don’t reduce human rights to a mere bargaining chip.’
Dr Brophy will be interviewed on the current state of play in Australia’s debate on the PRC, the current trajectory of Australia’s PRC policy and recommendations on an alternative way forward by David Goodman, Emeritus Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI) in an online book launch. The discussion will be followed by audience Q&A.
China Panic: Australia’s Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering is available for pre-order in paperback and e-book versions.
About the speakers
David Brophy
Dr David Brophy is a historian of Uyghur nationalism and the author of Uyghur Nation. He is a frequent commentator on the Xinjiang crisis and a senior lecturer on modern Chinese history at the University of Sydney.
David Goodman
Professor David S G Goodman is an Emeritus Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI).
Professor Goodman undertakes research on social and political change in China, especially at the local level. His most recent publications include Class and the Chinese Communist Party: A hundred years of social change, with Marc Blecher, Yingjie Guo, Jean-Louis Rocca, Tony Saich, and Beibei Tang (2021); China Impact: Threat Perception in the Asia-Pacific Region with Shigeto Sonoda (2018); Handbook of the Politics of China (2015); and Class in Contemporary China (2014). He is an Emeritus Professor at UTS, where he was founder of the International Studies Programme in 1994 and DVC International 2004-2009; at the University of Sydney, where he established the China Studies Centre in 2010; and at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, where he established the Department of China Studies in 2014, and served as Vice President Academic Affairs 2017-2021. Professor Goodman has been a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia since 2000; and was also a PRC Ministry of Education Distinguished Overseas Academic in the School of Social and Behavioural Studies at Nanjing University 2012-2016.
