Bob Hawke, Australia’s 23rd Prime Minister, was a great friend to Chinese and to China. He was Australian prime minister from 1983 – 1991 who died in May 2019.
Now a new electorate (seat) in Federal Parliament will be named ‘Hawke’ in his honour.
Hawke’s tenure as prime minister coincided with China’s emergence onto the world stage.
After leaving politics Hawke continued to travel to China regularly and spent a lot of time building relationships with Chinese leaders.
Charles Qin from Chin Communications had the pleasure to last work with Mr Hawke at the Boao Forum held in Melbourne in 2018.
Mr Hawke is especially remembered for:
- Ensuring more than 42,000 Chinese students were granted permanent visas
- Helping establish the Boao Forum for Asia
- Building relationships with Chinese and China
But how did Bob Hawke connect to Chinese?