Australian studies with Chinese characteristics

This chapter sets the contextual, conceptual, and methodological scenes for the book and presents its aims. Although its timing coincides with the significant signposts of five decades of Australia-China diplomatic relations and four decades of Australian studies in China, this book is more than commemorative or ceremonial. It has a self-driven mission to understand, inform, and advance the Australian studies community in China—an intellectual community that has explicit attributes of its own in its emergence, evolution, operation, and impact. This book employs both inside-out and outside-in approaches, bringing a diversity of experiences and actors/agents into an interactive dialogue. A pioneering effort of its kind, the book reflects on the past, examines the present, and imagines the future. Notably, it engages both leading and emerging scholars and employs new perspectives not only to refresh an understanding of the community but also to inject new dynamism into it to promote paradigmatic changes.