Presenters: Professor Harry Aveling

This presentation explores translation and the exercise of power using the case of Pham Duy Khiem (1908–1974), Ambassador of the Republic of (South) Vietnam to France in the mid-1950s.

It investigates control over texts – what is chosen to be translated, who chooses it, how the target text is produced and how it is integrated into the target culture, as well as plagiarism and ownership.

Pham Duy Khiem wrote two collections of Vietnamese folktales in French, republished as Légendes des Terres Sereines (Paris 1951). These stories have been used by other writers, often without acknowledging Pham’s authorship.

Presenters: Professor Christine Wong

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a project of breathtaking scale that aims to reshape economic geography to enhance China’s centrality in the world. Estimates for the costs of infrastructure to create a sea and land network linking more than 60 countries from Asia to Europe run upwards of US$6 trillion. China has to date committed several hundred billion yuan and created financial institutions to carry out the Belt and Road vision, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund, alongside the China Development Bank, Export-Import Bank, and state-owned commercial banks. But does China have the financial wherewithal to implement this grand scheme?

This lecture examines China’s recent development and places the BRI in the long arc of fiscal expansion since the turn of the century. Under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, the government spent lavishly on boosting public services, especially in the rural areas, using buoyant revenues that grew from ¥1.34 trillion to ¥8.3 trillion during the decade of 2000–2010. The BRI is a signature program in Xi Jinping’s assertive international posture, likewise conceived in an era of high growth and high foreign reserve accumulation. What happens when China’s growth slows? Will China’s fiscal institutions be robust enough to manage the transition and avoid overextending its finances under the BRI?

Presenters: Mr Richard McGregor

If the United States helped lay the postwar foundations for modern Asia, now the anchor of the global economy, Richard McGregor will speak how that structure is now crumbling – something he has chronicled in his new book, Asia's Reckoning.

For more than half a century, American power in the Pacific has successfully kept the peace. But it has also cemented the tensions in the toxic rivalry between China and Japan, consumed with endless history wars and entrenched political dynasties. Today, the combination of these forces, together with Donald Trump's unpredictable impulses and disdain for America's old alliances, threatens to upend the region and accelerate the unravelling of the postwar order.

Richard McGregor is a senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute, Australia’s premier foreign policy think tank, in Sydney. Mr McGregor is a former journalist and author who has won numerous awards for his reporting in China and east Asia.

Presenters: Professor Yiping Huang, Professor Christine Wong, Nicholas Lardy, Professor Yang Yao, Professor Fan Gang, Professor Emeritus Dwight Perkins, Professor Ross Garnaut AC

On the 40th anniversary of China’s ‘reform and opening’, a group of leading economists working on China in China, the US and Australia come together to review the main components and features of reform and assess their progress and achievements. The metrics applied range from gross domestic product to standards of living, income distribution, institutional change and technological advancement, and the sustainability and desirability of the Chinese path.

Presenters: Dr Jonas Nahm

The popular notion of a “Clean Energy Race” has often depicted the success of national wind and solar industries in the global economy as a zero-sum game. The rise of China’s renewable energy sectors in particular has been regarded as a threat to the West, leading to calls for trade barriers from politicians and industry associations alike.

Jonas Nahm, Assistant Professor of Energy, Resources, and Environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies will show that collaboration among wind and solar firms in China and Germany has been critical to the development of renewable energy technologies and the industries that produce them. It is because of — and not despite of — the contributions of Chinese renewable energy firms that vibrant wind and solar sectors have been established and maintained in Germany. This suggests that trade barriers create unnecessary obstacles to such collaboration and have detrimental impact on the development of clean energy technologies critical to combating climate change.

Presenters: Dr Michael Fabinyi

With the massive expansion of the Chinese economy over the last 30years, Chinese consumption of natural resources is becoming an increasingly important issue with global implications. In particular, global fisheries are stagnating or in decline. Yet seafood consumption continues to rise, and this is dramatically seen in the case of China, which by 2030 will consume approximately 40% of global food fish. As China's demand for seafood has grown, markets for seafood have penetrated deep into what were once remote frontiers of the Asia-Pacific region. The Chinese market for marine resources is proving to be one of the major drivers of social and environmental change in the coastal areas of the Asia-Pacific, with significant implications for local livelihoods and environments.

In this talk Dr Fabinyi will discuss the historical and social drivers of seafood consumption in China; the varied outcomes for fishing households and communities that have recently experienced a dramatic surge in seafood exports to China, using case studies of Papua New Guinea (sea cucumbers) and the Philippines (live groupers); and the ways in which governments and civil society organisations are trying to improve governance of this trade.

Presenters: Dr George Liu

China used to be a global role model for its health care system, characterised by universal access to primary care and public ownership. But hospitals became a dominant force since China commenced market reform in the late 1970s. High user charges in hospital care prompted new development of social health insurance and governmental efforts to revitalise primary care. Within a few years, more than 96% of the population have been covered by the three government subsidised health insurance schemes. Out-of-pocket payments as a percentage of total health expenditure dropped dramatically.

There remain a number of challenges facing health care policy makers in China. Particular challenges lie ahead for primary care development in China: hospital share in outpatient care has continued to grow; there is a serious shortage of service capacity in primary care despite that fact that full government budget support to community health services has resumed.

The Chinese government plans to introduce an activity-based funding mechanism for public hospitals. This may offer the government a new instrument for exerting control over the exorbitant growth of hospitals. However, a systems approach is essential in order to balance the needs for efficiency, equity, safety and quality of care.

Presenters: Dr Gudrun Wacker

The initial response of the EU and European member states to Xi Jinping’s launch of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road was quite positive. A platform to explore options for cooperation between China and the EU was formally established in Brussels in 2015. While some projects have been conducted successfully (some of which had already been underway before BRI was launched), China’s initiative and more specifically the way has been implemented has raised some concerns in Europe. These concerns go beyond BRI and have to be seen in the broader context of China’s increased presence and growing influence within the EU and its immediate neighborhood.

This presentation will address the following questions: How is the Belt and Road Initiative seen in Europe? What has been its impact so far? Where do EU interests converge with and diverge from China’s? What role does the 16+1 process (i.e. a group of 11 Eastern European EU member states, 5 aspirants to EU membership and China) play? What did this year’s EU-China summit bring? What is and what should be the way forward for the EU?

Presenters: Dr Fengshi Wu

When natural disasters strike, which channels do people in China seek for urgent relief and to spread the information? In this talk, Dr Wu will discuss research based on field work and interviews since 2009 which finds that during crisis time, non-governmental actors carry out relief missions effectively in parallel with state agencies in many parts of China. A highly networked and capable non-governmental organisation (NGO) community in disaster relief has emerged, operated across-regions and established a system of self-governance in the country. Similar evidence can also be found in the fields of monitoring and suing environmental pollution, reforming regulations for rare disease patients and building alternative educational facilities. The talk will focus on the field of disaster relief, but also try to explain how seemingly powerless NGOs can break down state monopoly over information management, donation, and effective governing of public affairs. Case evidence seems to point out that NGOs and other types of non-state actors can build up a de facto governing mechanism, given all the suitable conditions, to replaces many of the state functions and even makes the state obsolete in some cases.

Presenters: Dr Anthony Spires

With the passage of China’s first Charity Law in March 2016, Chinese nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) entered a new and unprecedented era of legal regulation, one that dramatically transformed the formal rules governing state-civil society relations. This talk will highlight problems experienced under earlier regulations and outline some major features of the new law. Drawing on grassroots NGO responses to the law’s initial public drafts, Dr Spires will analyse gaps between NGO leaders’ understanding of their work and several of the law’s key provisions, revealing civil society’s skepticism and pessimism about prospects for change. The talk concludes by considering the law’s likely implications for civil society development in China.

Presenters: Professor Bonnie McDougall

This seminar is based on two different but simultaneous literary translation practices in China, highlighting the personal, social and bureaucratic relationships between translators and their authors and publishers. It draws attention to changes in the classification of China as a world power from the late 19th century to the late 20th century and how these changes affect translators, authors and state publishers.

Presenters: Professor Bonnie McDougall

This seminar traces different patterns of joint literary translation from Chinese to English, with particular attention to questions such as how translation partners have collaborated in the past and how translators may select their translation partners.

Presenters: Associate Professor Haiqing Yu

With the increasing prevalence and impact of information and communication technologies on the Chinese socio-economic fabric, growing numbers of disabled people have sought employment and income opportunities by harnessing the power the ICTs and China’s growing digital economy. The Chinese government and its governing body of disability affairs (the Chinese Disabled Persons’ Federation) have encouraged e-solutions to disability employment through the ‘Internet + Disability’ and 'E-Commerce + Disability’ policies. They have worked with private internet companies, civil society organisations and transnational corporations to expand the disability employment and poverty alleviation agendas.

This talk critically examines China’s digital disability policies and implementation as well as disabled persons’ participation in the digital economy of disability within the context of China’s rise to global power and its social governance through the ‘Digital Economy + Entrepreneurship’ agenda. Drawing on Aihwa Ong’s work on neoliberalism as exception and Susan Greenhalgh’s work on China’s population governance, Associate Professor Yu argues that disability as an identity category has become a key neoliberal technology in China’s new mode of socio-economic governance; it is a political imperative to incorporate disability in the Chinese dream discourse. Disability as exception is allegorical to the rise of China who has been ‘handicapped’ in a US-centred world order and yet risen to challenge it.

Presenters: Dr Lee Jones

China is often seen as a 'Westphalian' state, clinging resolutely to sovereignty and non-interference. This is typically seen as a liability in an era where practically every problem appears to be transnational, requiring often-intrusive forms of interstate cooperation to address.

In reality, however, China is increasingly softening its approach to non-interference and extending its governance frontier beyond its borders to manage perceived threats to important interests. This presentation will discuss this phenomenon in general and provide a detailed case study of Chinese efforts to stem the influx of illegal narcotics from the golden triangle by launching opium substitution projects and joint anti-piracy patrols on the Mekong river. The specific interests involved in these governance projects shape their practical implementation, however, leading to results that are often not intended by Beijing.

Presenters: Rowan Calick

Xi Jinping has arguably become the most powerful person in the world. This has come from a combination of the absolute sovereignty of his communist party over all things China; his 'red genes', family heritage, which cannot be challenged; his purging and purifying the party, and centralising and personalising power; and the disarray of the nations and leaders championing the liberal democratic worldview. Can such power be limited, staunched or even reversed, within China or without? This is a giant question for our times.

Presenters: Xu Yi-Chong

Since 2006, when the State Council in China adopted the medium- to long-term plan for science and technology development, China’s innovation ambition has inspired many in China and triggered jumbles of concerns and fears elsewhere. Some question whether China will ever be able to innovate; others worry that the Chinese way of innovation will destroy the entire business model in the West.

What has driven the massive application of human, policy and financial resources to promote innovation in China? What is the role of the alleged ‘forced technology transfer’ in the process? More importantly, why are there successes and failures in innovation? There is no single answer to any of these questions. Asking the questions and trying to answer them nonetheless can reveal a lot about politics involved in technology innovation in China.

This presentation will use two examples: nuclear energy and high-voltage transmission systems, to identify the key factors that shape the way innovation takes place in China and to assess the argument about ‘forced’ technology transferred.

Presenters: Professor Timothy Cheek

Xi Jinping is the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao. We hear about his 'mass line campaign', the anti-corruption campaign, his much-touted China Dream and China’s assertive actions in the region, as well as conflicting news about his Belt and Road policy across Asia and into Africa. How can we make sense of what Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party are doing?

This talk offers perspectives from the history of the party and its notable style of rule: rectification. The traditions of party 'state-craft' dating back to the Yan’an in the 1940s and across the Mao period help us see how the Party leadership today interprets the middle income trap for a developing nation: only the party can save China, and only rectification under one supreme leader can save the party. This is a reaction to the reformation in Chinese society over the past two decades. It is Xi Jinping’s counter-reformation.

Presenters: Associate Professor Vanessa Teague, Ms Rachel Dixon

There has been much talk of the need for focus on ethics in AI development and automated decision-making, and there’s no doubt we can benefit from attention to ethics in all program development. But an ethical framework on its own will not reduce the risk of unintended consequences in development and deployment of technology.

This talk will look at the range of issues that influence the use of technology in government and business and how we might develop a better way of delivering technology-enabled services.

Canapes and drinks will be served from 5.00pm, with the seminar beginning at 6.00pm.

Privacy Awareness Week (PAW) is an initiative held every year across the Asia Pacific to promote and raise awareness of privacy issues and the importance of protecting personal information. This event is hosted by the University of Melbourne and the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.

Presenters: Ms Kobi Leins, Associate Professor Timothy Miller

What role will artificial intelligence (AI) play in our lives to assist us in our human capabilities such as data analysis, decision making and storytelling?

You're invited to join a free panel discussion focused on the future of AI and the role it currently plays in our lives, gradually growing in capacity to supplement human abilities.

With AI encompassing deep learning, data mining, machine learning, natural language processing and agent-based systems, it can be used in health and medicine, government and search engine assistance (plus much more) in order to make sense of human-derived data.

About the Melbourne Connect Monthly Breakfast Series

These events are designed to delve into a range of topics on innovation, and connect a diverse mix of thought leaders in leading industry, government, university, and the innovation community to encourage collaboration.

Presenters: Dr Blackford Middleton

In this talk, Dr. Middleton will describe the obstacles and opportunities in transforming healthcare at scale with health IT focusing particularly on useful Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Aides for clinical practice. He will use examples from his personal history of clinical decision that expands for 30 years, knowledge engineering to promote knowledge sharing and reuse, and current work focused on creating a ‘system of insight’ that can assess and inform clinical practice across a disparate array of electronic health records (EHR) and patient-facing technologies. He will highlight particular challenges and successes, and close with a 25 year vision for clinical decision support.