China Matters has gone, and that is a tragedy. Australia lost a valuable think tank that could provide policy advice at a critical juncture of Australia-China relations. The implementation of the government hatchet job is set out in detail in Margaret Simon’s extended article, Red Flags, in the latest Monthly, and in Hamish McDonald’s article in Inside Story on 22 April.

For those of us who care about relations with China, and who have been engaged in China Studies, it has felt like a knife turning in a wound. What is lacking in these two accounts is an exposure of the viciousness and vindictiveness of the episode.

How did this country turn from one that valued relations with China to one where the very topic, the word, the concept of China was practically banned from public discourse? China Matters is a prominent casualty. There are others: the ANU’s China In the World Centre, founded by Kevin Rudd in 2010 with great fanfare, is now a shadow of its former glory; the BHP-Billiton Chair in Australian Studies at Peking University is no more; the fate of several centres of Chinese Studies at Australian universities is hanging by a thread. Companies, university vice-chancellors and government agencies, all try to avoid involvement with China. Where now can we look for China expertise?

Margaret Simons makes it clear in her article that........

© Pearls and Irritations