Trevor Watson & Melissa Watson in Conversation, 

discussing The Beijing Bureau

Wednesday 16 June 2021

6:30 PM – 7:30 PM (AEST)

In store at Avid Reader Bookshop / ZOOM Online

Tickets available until 16 June 2021 4:00 PM, Book here

INSTORE TICKET $15.00, 

ONLINE TICKET $5.00, 

Book (The Beijing Bureau) $32.99

NOTE: In registering for this event you need to include your email address.

Instore guests - 6.00 for a 6.30pm start. Limited to eighty seats. With booking an instore ticket your name will be on the door at Avid Reader. Avid Reader is required to use the Check In Qld App when signing in patrons to our events. You can download the Check In Qld App HERE.

Online guests - we email the Zoom event link to you after 4.00pm AEST on the day of the event. If you have not received this information prior to the event please check your SPAM folder. Customers using BigPond email addresses have informed us that they often do not receive our emails. Please use an alternative address or ensure that you have contacted us directly before 6.00pm AEST on the day of the event to request the link.

Bar open at 5.30pm - drinks available for purchase prior to and after the event.

The Beijing Bureau is a collection of essays revealing the insights of twenty-five Australian foreign correspondents into China, from the 1970s to present day: the lives of its people, its government and its culture, and what China's rise means for Australia and the world community.

Join Trevor Watson and Melissa Roberts as they discuss The Beijing Bureau: 25 Australian Correspondents Reporting China's Rise.

China dominates the headlines across the world as the country takes for itself a global role. As governments, businesses and individuals increasingly rely on news reports to make decisions, The Beijing Bureau brings together Australia’s most acclaimed journalists to share their hard-won knowledge of China and stories of life as a correspondent: including Mike Smith, Stan Grant, Stephen McDonell, Rowan Callick and Richard McGregor, reporting for international news outlets like the ABC, The New York Times, the BBC, CNN and more.

Vital political and trading relationships are changing – China is flexing its muscles internationally, through the Belt and Road Initiative and trading relationships, through Wolf Warrior diplomacy, through the control of the diaspora and militarily. At home in China, the country is intensifying its hold and extending patriotism; at the same time, Chinese people are experiencing prosperity unrivalled in their history. With essays that cover a range of subjects and written by journalists who have worked and lived in China, The Beijing Bureau provides readers with a thoughtful perspective of this powerful nation.

Trevor Watson is a journalist and author with more than half a century of national and international experience. He has been a regular visitor to China since 1979 and was based in Beijing as Bureau Chief for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1988-1990. He was also variously based as ABC correspondent in Singapore, Papua New Guinea, India and Thailand, and covered the South Pacific. Trevor is the author of Tremble and Obey, An ABC Correspondent's Account of the Bloody Beijing Spring which focuses on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He is also the recipient of a Walkley Award and The United Nations media prize for excellence in journalism. He was Director of Media for the University of Sydney’s Business School for ten years.

Melissa Roberts covered China for Time Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and The Daily Mail as a freelance journalist from 1988 to 1990. She has worked as a staff correspondent for The Australian and AP DowJones, and covered Singapore and Australia for Newsweek magazine for seven years. Melissa has written five children’s books. From 2010 to 2020, she was a senior public relations and media manager with NSW Health.

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