【09.12.29 澳大利亚人报】PM Kevin Rudd backs ANU's China centre

青蛙小王子

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/pm-kevin-rudd-backs-anus-china-centre/story-e6frg6nf-1225814257436

KEVIN Rudd is throwing his weight - and up to $100 million of taxpayer funds over 10 years - behind the Australian National University's thrust to create the world's leading research centre on China.
The Prime Minister, the West's first Chinese-speaking leader, appears determined to ensure Australian decision-makers are better equipped to handle China, which has become Australia's most important economic partner, and the broader public is better educated about the superpower.
To help cement this key relationship, Mr Rudd is turning to his alma mater, where he graduated with first-class honours in Arts (Asian Studies), majoring in Chinese language and history.
The China centre is part of a suite of ANU-associated institutions being established or upgraded as Mr Rudd seeks to burnish his own global credentials as an international affairs guru.
This push follows an annus horribilis for Australia's China relations, during which tensions rose over the arrest in Shanghai of Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, attacks on Australia's governance of Chinese investment, protests by Beijing against the visit of Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and the showing of a film about her at a Melbourne film festival, and the failure to conduct any further free trade agreement talks.
Late in the year, relations improved, with China signing a contract for $50 billion worth of liquefied natural gas, Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang making warm comments about Australia during a successful visit and a tentative bipartisan approach re-emerging between the government and the opposition.
Mr Rudd announced two weeks ago that Michael L'Estrange - a former top adviser to John Howard who stepped down earlier this year as head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - would lead a new National Security College at the ANU.
ANU vice-chancellor Ian Chubb said this college was the first element of "a reinvigorated relationship between the Australian government and the ANU".
Mr Rudd said the college would "spearhead this relationship". In an earlier speech at ANU, the Prime Minister said: "The great institutions of the United States have strong Asian studies program, including Harvard, Yale and Berkeley. The ANU's (original) Asian studies course was inspired in part by the vision of creating an Antipodean version of the London School of Oriental and African Studies.
"How do we take these models into the 21st century to create an unparalleled resource for both the nation - and the nation's official community in Canberra as well? How does the ANU - possibly in partnership with other universities and in partnership with the Australian government - rise to this future challenge?"
The further development of the ANU's China expertise is expected to involve an intensification of relationships with Chinese institutions, including the influential Central Party School in Beijing, the country's top administrative training agency.
Another element could comprise an increase in resources for the Australia New Zealand School of Government, led by Allan Fels, which is tipped for expansion to enable it to incorporate a stronger Asian element.
The ANU - whose new chancellor, replacing Kim Beazley, is another former Labor politician, Gareth Evans - is already an international powerhouse on China. Its Contemporary China Centre, headed by Jonathan Unger, publishes one of the English-speaking world's two most authoritative publications on the country, The China Journal.
Last year, the ANU established the China Institute, an umbrella body to co-ordinate the university's expertise on the subject across all disciplines. It is headed by Richard Rigby, who graduated from the university with a PhD in modern Chinese history, then worked for 26 years as a diplomat and was assistant director-general at the Office of National Assessments.
Building the capacity of potential alternative sources of advice on international issues to DFAT underlines questions asked increasingly loudly this year about the department's role, and its standing within the hierarchy of the Rudd administration.
Crucial roles in the upgrading of ANU's China expertise are being played at the administrative level by Andrew MacIntyre, dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific, and by Geremie Barme, an internationally renowned professor of Chinese history, whom Mr Rudd respects highly.
Professor Barme wrote about Mr Rudd's celebrated but controversial speech, made in Chinese, at Beijing University last year, that he "with finesse and skill rewrote the rules of engagement in a way that can only benefit Australia and our relationship with this important country".
He commended Mr Rudd's offer then to be a zhengyou - a true friend - of China.
"By introducing (this term) with all of its liberating connotations into our dealings with China, Kevin Rudd has achieved something of considerable significance," he said.
Professor Barme said the events of this year have revealed considerable work must be done in order to realise the ambitions Mr Rudd raised in that speech.
It now looks likely research institutions will be developed to start that work.