Five books that reveal Australians’ awkward relationship with China
The expulsion of Michael Smith and Bill Birtles has left Antipodeans blind about life on the streets of the Asian nation, as the authors’ tomes demonstrate.
Financial Review journalist Mike Smith with ABC journalist Bill Birtles as they prepared to leave China in September last year.
The real loss from the expulsion of Australia’s last journalists in China – The Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith and the ABC’s Bill Birtles – is the reports they filed of ordinary Chinese citizens pursuing aspirations familiar to any Australian family, in a social and political environment that few of us could comprehend.
Smith, who was based in Shanghai, and Birtles, who was in Beijing, published memoirs within days of each other in April.
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