Bio

Graeme Smith is a fellow at the Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA). His research is question-driven, with a focus on actors within Chinese institutions and enterprises, ranging from local officials in rural Anhui, mining workers in Papua New Guinea, to project managers with large infrastructure companies charged with rolling out the Belt and Road Initiative in the Pacific. His research team at DPA explores PRC investment, migration, military engagement, technology and aid in the Asia Pacific, with projects in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Thailand and Vietnam. He also has ongoing research into PRC domestic politics, focusing on the motivations of local officials. His work has won best article prizes in both China Quarterly and the Journal of Pacific History. With Professor Terence Wesley-Smith of the University of Hawaii, he is currently editing The China Alternative? Changing Geopolitics in the Pacific, which will be the definitive volume on China’s engagement with the Pacific. He also hosts the Little Red Podcast with former BBC and NPR China correspondent Louisa Lim, which covers China beyond the Beijing beltway. The program won the 2018 Podcast of the Year award in the News and Current Affairs Category.