This September, we continued deepening connections with key partners. Earlier in the month Foundation Senior Researcher Dr To and I were in Australia for outreach with various think-tanks, commentators and academics.
It was useful as always to meet with the leadership team of our Australian counterparts AsiaLink and great to chat with their new executive director Penny Burtt. I wish her well as she takes over the reigns there.
Simon Draper with our Sydney Consul General Billie Moore, Alex Oliver (Director of Reseach), Dr James To and Hervé Lemahieu (Director of the Asian Power and Diplomacy Program)
We also met with our friends at La Trobe University, Asia Society, the Lowy Institute and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute to exchange notes on our two countries engagement with Asia.
My visit was capped by a meeting with members of our Leadership Network based in Australia who gathered for their Australia Hui - more specifically, a mihi masterclass lead by Areti Metuamate. Spending time with these young Kiwi professionals who excel in their respective fields gives you a sense that if we can equip more young New Zealanders to be like them, then New Zealand can truly thrive in Asia.
The Foundation leads Track II delegation to China
In the Track II space, the Foundation led a trade policy delegation to Beijing and Shanghai to speak with Chinese colleagues about the challenges China and New Zealand are navigating on trade.
The Foundation's Track II delegation with our Chinese counterparts
Issues on the agenda included challenges to the multilateral trading system and the emerging regional economic and trade architecture.
Foundation Chairman Hon John Luxton headed the delegation, which included Jason Young (Director, New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre), Stephanie Honey (trade policy consultant and Associate Director, International Business Forum), Robert Scollay (Director, APEC Studies Centre, University of Auckland), and David Pine (Representative, New Zealand China Council).
Asia Media Centre - read Jason Young's article on the dangers of a US-China trade war
As part of our efforts to help young New Zealanders to ‘Think Asia’ when it comes to their future careers and academic pathways, we had Abbas Nazari and Sarah Pereira, who both recently participated in Track II dialogues offshore, talk about their experiences with students at Victoria University of Wellington. Meanwhile, we continued our series of Track II dialogue simulations with students at the University of Auckland. We also announced the recipients of our post graduate research grants for this year. Congratulations to Dylan Stent and Jasmin Edwards of Victoria University of Wellington and to Jack Petterson of University of Otago.
We're pleased to welcome our new arts director to the team
In the arts, I am very pleased to announce the appointment of Craig Cooper as the new director of our arts programme. Craig brings a lot of expertise to this space. He has lived and worked in Taiwan and previously worked as festival director of Christchurch Arts Festival, associate director at Auckland Live, senior programme adviser and manager at Creative NZ, and assistant producer at Sydney Opera House Studio. He is also the artistic director of the Taranaki Arts Festival.
As new director, Craig will lead the implementation of the Foundation’s revitalised arts programme following a review that included discussions with key stakeholders in the arts community.
As a result of the review, the Foundation is renaming the programme from ‘arts and culture’ to ‘arts programme’ to make its purpose clearer and avoid confusion with cultural festivals. We updated the programme’s objective to “Bring Asia into the mainstream of New Zealand arts”. We plan to achieve this by supporting the inclusion of Asia content in major galleries and festivals, and by inspiring New Zealand artists to grow their understanding of Asia.
The Foundation is also refocusing its arts sector funding and will establish a partnership fund to develop opportunities to work with major New Zealand festivals, galleries or institutions to bring Asian art into the mainstream. We will continue to offer our established artist-in-residence programme to New Zealand artists and support other professional development opportunities such as curator tours. We are increasing our investment in this area significantly.
Journalist Katie Bradford shares Jefferson Fellowship experience
In the media space, our Asia Media Centre hosted a luncheon for journalists and academics where we had our 2018 Jefferson Fellow and 1 News journalist Katie Bradford as featured speaker.
Bradford shared her experience visiting Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines which prompted great conversations about the state of democracy in Southeast Asia.
Education workshops for chinese language teachers
Under our education programme, we hosted workshops in Auckland and Wellington for primary and secondary school Chinese language teachers.
Partnering with the International Languages Exchanges and Pathways (ILEP), the workshop introduced them to the new resource for teaching Chinese which we produced with the assistance of China Language Foundation and the Confucius Institute in Auckland.
Coming up
Finally, next month we will be launching our new improved Foundation website. I would like to acknowledge the website project team led by our website manager Ned Wotherspoon for the great work they have done. We are looking forward to sharing this with you shortly.
Coming up, I will also share with you some exciting developments in the sports space, and also unveil the Maori expression the board has agreed for the Foundation.
Simon Draper