 And this is the exciting time each year where we look at what's happening in China and its relations with the rest of the world, bringing together colleagues from China, from around Australia, from around the world who share our interests. Every year is an interesting and important year in China's economic development, and we're certainly meeting now at an interesting time. The last year has confirmed a big tendency, and we noted in the conference two years ago, that the global financial crisis has left the legacy of sluggish economic growth, probably a new trajectory of low growth in the old industrial countries without inhibiting the rest of our management in the redeveloping countries led by China. And that's leading to an acceleration of trends we've been observing for some time, rapid growth in China's relative importance, certainly globally, in our own political system. And big changes like that made big thoughts to understand them, to work out their implications, including for Australian policy. And I think many of us share a concern that Australian thinking hasn't quite caught up with the implications for our policy of historic development in China. But there's part of the background of our discussion today. I'm very glad that you're all here to share that with us. And to get things going, I'd like to introduce the last Chancellor of the Australian National University, Daniel. Thank you very much for that introduction. So Roddington, colleagues, friends, good morning, and on behalf of the Australian National University, I'd like to welcome you here to the 2011 China Update. The annual China Update conference hosted by the Rio Tinto ANU-China partnership and supported by OSA is a cornerstone event that showcases our expertise and our impact, I think, on the British and the Empire of the World. We're proud that we have one of the strongest concentrations of expertise on China anywhere in the world outside of China, naturally. China is critically important to this university department. And I'll give you a couple of examples of that. 25% of our international students come from China. ANU is the host of the Australian China and the World Centre. And China ranks fifth behind US, UK, France, and Germany for co-publications with ANU researchers. And I think if you watch those statistics, I think you'll see it rapidly move up that list over the next ten years. The Year of China Intensive Language Programme from the Regional Students is an important part of the ANU-AEA space program and I think demonstrates very much our commitment to immersion as an important element of both language and cultural studies. For many Australian universities, China engagement tends to stop at international student recruitment. That's certainly not the case at ANU. Our interactions are much deeper and multifaceted. In the past 12 months, we've hosted visits from numerous Chinese officials from a destination of your life. China's Vice President, the Minister for Science and Technology, the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Vice Minister of Ministry of Education, the Vice Chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, as well as numerous senior officials from governments, universities and groups such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. These activities help to make the connections that enable the exchange of research and ideas. The Australian China Climate Change Forum that ANU hosted earlier this year is another example of university engaging and spreading the expertise in one of the most challenging public policy debates facing the world today. The theme of this year's update is significant. Accommodating China's rise in a way that ensures future global economic and political stability and prosperity is one of the most important and challenging tasks facing the world community. Analyzing and debating the issues surrounding the development of China will be useful not only for academic research but also for policy and strategic discussions. The rapid development of China presents challenges and opportunities for ANU and indeed for the universities in Australia more broadly, the university sector in Australia more broadly. Research, knowledge, transfer and expert input into public policy can help to address the increased range of economic, social and environmental challenges not just in China but globally. I hope that your productive and fruitful day-to-day in discussing these important issues, and I in particular look forward to welcoming Michael Wayne Swan, Deputy Prime Minister and treasurer to address the audience later today. Now, the item that I'm really up here for, our keynote address this year is to be given by Sir Ray Eddington. Sir Ray is just currently non-executive Chairman of Australia, New Zealand and Great New Morgan and Chairman of Infrastructure Australia. Educated as an engineer, an excellent background by my dad, at the University of Western Australia and then at Oxford University, WAs of 1974 Road Scholar. Sir Ray's career began in transport and aviation and he went on to become CEO of Cape A Pacific and said airlines and British Airways before returning to Australia in 2005. So I think you can see he has a very strong link and flow to industry and indeed to Asia. In that same year, 2005, Sir Ray was awarded by the British Government the services to civil aviation. He's riskically retired as a Director of Rio Tinto but still maintains non-executive directives with News Corporation, Lion, China Light and Power Holdings and the John Squire and Sam's Group. Sir Ray also serves as President of the Australia-Japan Business Cooperation Committee and Chairman of the Victorian Major Events Company. Thank you gentlemen. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Sir Ray and him to give today's keynote address. Thanks Vice-Chancellor for that very warm introduction. As I always say, introduction that my father would have enjoyed and my mother would have believed. It's my pleasure particularly to be here at the ADU because this is an institution which more than any other in our country has fostered a deeper understanding between our country and our PAs. Clearly China is a very important piece of that but this university has done a lot over the years to help us develop a deep understanding of Asia. My own time in Asia as the Vice-Chancellor said included nearly 18 years working for the Squire Group in Cathay Pacific. During that time, most of it in Hong Kong but some of it in Korea and Japan as well. I had the opportunity to be part of it as it were of the Asian story first-hand. I've said before that when I went to Asia I think I would fit in two small steel trunks. When I returned to Australia in 97 I had a wonderful wife and career, two children and everything I owned wouldn't fit in a 40-foot container. That's a story for another day. This particular workshop really is an opportunity to explore the links between Australia and China. When I returned to Australia from Hong Kong in 1997 I was struck, and I remember saying to Professor Garno who was then here at the ANU, that my sense was that Australia's relationship with Asia was in some sense in Schizophrenia School that we were at the heart of Asia economically because our major trading partners were in Asia and that is even more so through the day where our three major trading partners China, Japan and Korea it ishting in our three of the dozen or so major global economies are all part of Asia. So we were, as an economy of Australia, was at the heart of Asia. But geographically we are at the edge of Asia. As it were, we are at 10 or 11 hours south by airplane from Beijing and culturally we are still halfway between London and Sydney. So Australia itself is on a journey and one of the things that has struck me about coming back to our country again after some time in the UK is that in some ways things haven't moved on very much since then. The one thing that has changed is that our economy is even more imagine in the North Asian economies. And now of course China is preeminence in that for several decades Japan was our major trading partner. China was not only our major trading partner two way trade terms but also our biggest export market. So understanding China, not only understanding its journey but participating as we will in its future I think is an exciting opportunity for our country. But it does represent a change in another way which is this that I grew up in in Australia that had its roots in European second in many ways. And for most of the last 200 years plus since European second our major trading partners in fact have been the United Kingdom and America more recently in the second half of the 20th century Japan and now China. And of course we understood with our shared histories of work much more about Europe and about North America than we have about Asia. So it's doubly important that institutions like the ANU and days like this give us a chance to strengthen our understanding of Asia and Alex. China that's interesting. You could not pick up a magazine or turn on a television today without a discussion about China being a key part of the day. Whether it's discussion around the Chinese economy the extraordinary progress it has made and the challenges it faces all the opportunities that countries like Australia is key trading partners face. Whether it's discussions around China's politics and who in the fifth generation will succeed in current leadership and what that means more for their relationship with Australia but for both politics. Whether it's a discussion around the most recent five-year plan the fourth five-year plan that was recently released people who wouldn't have even known that the Chinese had a five-year plan in the past now are recognised as important to read and to understand it because it makes a very important point about what the senior Chinese leaders describe as successful. China is in many ways a much more open place than the place I visited in the late 1970s when I first lived in Hong Kong. And nowhere is that more obvious than the economy. Getting to China in the 70s was a challenge. Now there are many non-stop flights from all the key gateways here in Australia to the key gateways in China. Going not just to the major cities like Koizhe and Shanghai and Guangzhou but also to other important cities in the country looking at the investment in infrastructure and in education and in entrepreneurship. I think just opens our eyes as Australians to the opportunities that exist in that country. One of the things I think that we will reflect on and I think Australia is in an extremely good position here to contribute to the debate and to support this journey is that for many years in my business life the major economy in Asia was Japan and as the Vice Chancellor said I lived in Japan for four years and it's still a country like China which is close to my heart. And 18 months ago for the first time China replaced Japan as Australia's major trading market. Now the business world in me is actually quite comfortable with the world in which instead of having all our trading eggs in one basket be it Japan or China or Korea we have opportunities in all three major economies and the major Australian companies like Rio Tinto that trade with China also have major trading relationships with Japan and Korea and that's a good thing. It means we have three major opportunities in North Asia rather than just one and that's not to forget for a moment important countries with whom we in Australia have key links like India, Indonesia and the other Southeast Asia countries but it's a good thing that we have a number of key trading relationships and one of the things I think that we are increasingly conscious of is that in particular Japan which is now the third biggest economy in the world behind China and the United States of America and when I lived in Japan again the Japan relationship was very focused on the United States of America America was the major strategic partner and it was also Japan's major trading partner and of course it was Japan's major market as well and today Japan itself finds China as its major trading partner so our two major trading partners in Japan and China have as one another a very important strategic interest going forward and given the shared history of those two countries that does present itself with some challenges but I believe it also presents us in Australia with some great opportunities I look at the China story in many ways with awe I look at the way in which the economy has transformed itself since Deng Xiaoping's open door policy in the late 1970s and what it meant for that country and what strikes me about China's transition through that period as an economy is firstly that it has been in many ways so smooth if you look at the development of the US economy over a century it was a century that included a civil war, a great depression and involvement in two major global conflicts World War I and World War II China's transition in economic terms has been very smooth it's not that there haven't been bumps but they've been well to be mine and so I think as we look forward to the development of the Chinese economy of the country we should expect that these things never occur in a straight line I'm a China poor, a China optimist and as I said I'm struck by how extraordinarily smooth in so many ways that transition has been over the 14, 30, 40 years it's taken place we should not be one way of being surprised about that China was the dominant global power after all for probably 20 of the previous 30 centuries albeit that for much of that time it was inward-looking this transition has been a rightful one of my concerns if that's not too strong a word about the relationship between us and Asia and China in particular is the extent to which our business community has yet to fully engage in what I would regard as an appropriate way what do I mean by that well my generation invariably went to work in Europe if they went anywhere outside of Australia after they finished at university very few of us went to Asia and in a sense I went to Asia myself via the UK so to that extent I suppose I follow the traditional path but many of my generation have not worked in Asia they may have done business with Asian companies but they haven't worked in it and I would hope that the next generation and the generation of students who are here today at this great university will take the opportunity not only to to study the languages of the countries in particular China but also to work there because Australian businesses need men and women who understand the language and the culture and have actually spent some time on the ground now there are many more of those today than there were but one of the things of concern is for example the study of Asian languages in our country here in Australia has stored that it hasn't progressed in the way in which it might now I grew up in Perth and Western Australia and I studied at the school and when you live in Perth they're both dead languages but it seems to me that that today's young people while recognising the importance of our European heritage and the desire also to learn something of the European language must also take the opportunity, languages is their gift to study not only the Chinese history and culture but also the language itself and we are seeing some of that my concern is that it's too slow and there are a number of implications for that the first is that as the Australian Asian economic integration continues at pace and it will continue at pace not just because our major trading partners are in North Asia but also our country has been traditionally rich and capital poor and therefore we need in with investment to help us do the things that we can do in this great country and historically that investment has come from Europe and the UK in particular in North America but increasingly it's investment from Japan and now China and that's that investment looks to come to Australia to help us take the economic opportunities it naturally arouses debate and the most recent opportunities for Chinese investment into our country the debate is sometimes being tensioned with their focus and for me the best way to resist that if there are more and more people in our country who understand Asia and if there are more business men and business women who can add their voices to the debate because be clear capital we need whether it's to grow our own infrastructure or to take advantage of our own opportunities not just in the resource space but also in areas like manufacturing and agriculture and North Asian investment Chinese investment in particular is a critical part of this and it needs champions here in our country as well as people in Europe who wish to take the advantages of investing in Australia so one of my pleas to the business community is to take advantage of Asian opportunities but in order to do that intelligently then we need to know much more about our Asian neighbours and to be comfortable in their presence as the Vice Chancellor said I studied engineering many years ago at the University of Western Australia I was struck then by the number of Asian students who were studied at University in Australia a number of them in those days on something called the Colombo Planters many of these students went back from South East Asia from Indonesia from Malaysia from Singapore from Hong Kong and today when I go back to South East Asia I'm able to meet a number of them now in very senior leadership positions in the business and I'm constantly reminded by the value that Australia has received from as it were being part investors in the education of those men and women they became the vast majority of cases fans of our country they understood our country and they were important reached between their own countries and so one of the things for me is refreshing about the University canvases in Australia today not just here at the ANU where the best work is done in the Asia links but also around other canvases I'm struck by the number of young Asian men and women who are studying at our canvases and I recognise that just like those who were here in the 60s on the Colombo Planters many of them will return to their countries and will be lifelong supporters and the opportunity to build bridges to the 23rd so in a sense education as it so often is is the great opportunity it's an economic opportunity for our country, it's now the third biggest export earner for Australia behind coal and iron ore but it's also a great bridge of culture and a great driver of key strong long lasting economic opportunities and links that survive so in supporting this conference I'm conscious that I'm also supporting the links between Australia and our Asian neighbours in particular China and I look forward to seeing the links between Australia and China continue to grow in a vital role you will all play in building those bridges now and into the future thank you very much I'd like to ask you a question from your perspective on the Australia-China and their relationship Sir Rod, I greatly appreciate what you have to say about Japan and China but if you consider China Australia's 900 pound gorilla with an arm around our shoulders what is the future for Australia India and Australia Indonesia both of whom are rapidly emerging economically as you refer to China thank you it's a clearly a very important issue and two countries are different in this way there are 240 million Indonesia I was in Jakarta a month ago with a joint infrastructure mission looking at infrastructure opportunities in Indonesia there are 240 million Indonesians and in the vast majority of cases we fly right over the top of Indonesia on our way to Beijing, Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo so and the Indonesian economy is closing $1 trillion so it's a bit smaller than the Australian economy but it's growing by a certain 7% a year the predictions for the next two years are that the economy will grow at about 7% so it's a very important part and as we've discovered in the debate on capital exports like capital exports in Indonesia it's an important trading partner and increasingly a strategic partner and again, Australia has been slow I think to really engage intelligently and again through the glum boat plane we have some good friends in Indonesia who have been here for education so the Indonesian story is an important one for me this is that the debate about Indonesia is similar to the debate about China and Japan it's China and Japan and if my wife was here she would remind me to say in Korea as well because South Korea in particular is an important business in China so Indonesia matters 10 tonnes our population I have lost their rapidly growing economy and increasingly strong economy India is also a rapidly growing power both in economic terms it's an important country in terms of its strategic job I think it's now Australia's fifth biggest trading partner for me like many of you I spend time in India as well as in China and North Asia and the Indian the Indian story has been mixed someone once said to me that the reason why India has been so slow to evolve and so bureaucratic is that when the British left in 1947 one of them said we'll be back soon don't touch anything and we Indians believe it but and of course after the Second World War and after partition in 1947 when India finally got its independence from Britain its closest strategic partner was the Soviet Union to the economic model of India and Russia today India a billion people a rapidly growing economy quite different from China in many ways in that where is the Chinese have invested very heavily in infrastructure it's taken Indians a long time to begin that journey so one of the things about India for me is that without really good infrastructure actually it's important your international gateways very good to get very difficult to get manufactured goods to the ports and often go to markets and India is only really just beginning to face up to that whereas China began that journey many years ago so India in a sense has almost skipped the industrial revolution and then straight into the information and in my days at British Airways many of British Airways best software engineers were based in India they were British Airways employees living in places like Delhi and Mumbai and if you had a problem an IT problem you would simply shut it down the line the closest player in the UK to India and the Indian team that they got in the next morning as India was 4 or 5 hours ahead of the UK would have the problem solved and on the desk by the time you got into the office at 8 so India is a major player in the global services industry particularly in those sorts of spaces but at Gail I think for Australia it's not about China or India it's about China and India and if we know little about China as a country certainly not nearly enough and I'm always conscious when I'm in this group and I'm having known Ross Gano for many years and his understanding and passion for the China relationship in particular this group is different in the sense of understanding the bilateral understanding how important it is but many in Australia are just beginning to understand the Chinese well India is further behind most Australians have never gone to India and that is a challenge for us and again when you walk onto university campuses increasing you'll see lively Indian faces as the other women study there just like China and India is reaching out to us it's important where it's up to them others I think that will be all for us thanks for having me