Gao Xiang, president of CASS, meets in Beijing with Milton Dick, speaker of the Australian House of Representatives. Photo: Zhu Gaolei/CSSN
On Sept. 21, Gao Xiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), met in Beijing with a delegation led by Milton Dick, speaker of the Australian House of Representatives. Li Xuesong, vice president of CASS; Yu Xubo, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and deputy head of the NPC China-Australia Friendship Group; and Scott Dewar, Australian Ambassador to China, attended the meeting.
Gao noted that China and Australia have a long history of exchanges and that, in recent years, under the strategic guidance of the leaders of both countries, bilateral relations have continued to improve and develop, delivering tangible benefits to both peoples. As the China-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership enters its second decade, strengthening academic dialogue and think tank exchanges is an important means of enhancing mutual understanding and consolidating the partnership between the two countries. CASS is China’s premier academic organization and comprehensive research center for philosophy and social sciences. In the 1980s, it signed an academic cooperation agreement with the Australian Academy of the Humanities, establishing a relationship of academic exchange. The two sides renewed the agreement in 2024, laying a solid foundation for further academic exchanges. CASS is willing to further expand cooperation with Australia’s academic and educational communities.
Gao expressed hope that think tanks in both countries would strengthen exchanges and translate their outcomes into practice, while historians from both countries would increase interaction and draw on the strengths of the Chinese Academy of History to deepen cooperation. He also called for stronger youth academic exchanges and broader people-to-people and cultural ties between China and Australia, promoting mutual learning, understanding, and friendship among young people and laying a stronger foundation for the future of China-Australia relations.
Dick thanked CASS for its warm reception. He said that bilateral relations are developing steadily and that think tank exchanges and academic exchange and mutual learning are important foundations for friendly relations and deeper cooperation between the two nations. CASS has long played an active role in promoting academic exchanges between Australia and China and enhancing mutual understanding. Youth are crucial to the future and to long-term cooperation, he said, adding that Australia places great importance on academic and youth exchanges with China and looks forward to further deepening academic exchanges and cooperation with CASS, thereby promoting the steady and sustained development of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two nations.
Heads of relevant CASS departments also attended the meeting.