State Library of Victoria, 26 October 2023, 6.30pm to 7.30pm AEDT
The Louis Green Memorial Lecture is an annual lecture on intellectual and social history in honour of the Monash University historian Louis Green. In the 2023 lecture, Dr Mark Harrison (UTAS) will argue that Australia does not have a roadmap for China in the Xi era but that in itself is an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of the relationship. The Xi era has brought forth difficult questions about what understanding China really means. The crushing of dissent in Hong Kong and accusations of crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and numerous other examples highlight the reassertion of CCP power in China and a realisation of the gap between the liberal assumptions of understanding and a system that in its own words rejects liberalism. What happens to the ideals of understanding if you do not like some of what you find?