Over the past two decades, tensions between China and Australia have intensified across diplomatic, economic, and security domains, with the South Pacific emerging as a key arena of rivalry. Conventional geopolitics explains conflict largely through power distribution and strategic calculation. This seminar argues that communicative structures and empathetic capacities are equally influential in shaping conflict trajectories. It develops a theoretical synthesis of deliberative strategic empathy and deliberative peace theory; identifies the political, social, and cultural conditions under which such empathy can emerge and be sustained; and examines both formal and informal institutional designs that enable cross-geopolitical deliberation. By analysing these pathways, the study evaluates how deliberative strategic empathy can mitigate bilateral tensions and contribute to more cooperative regional governance.

About the Speakers

Baogang He (Ph.D, ANU 1994) is Distinguished Professor at Deakin University, and the Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Professor He is widely known for his work in Chinese politics, in particular the deliberative politics in China as well as in regionalism, international relations, federalism, and multiculturalism in Asia. His publications are found in top journals including Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Peace Research, Political Theory, Political Studies, and Perspectives on Politics.

Professor Ron Levy's work adapts the political theory of deliberative democracy to understand how contentious constitutional problems can be better managed. For example, he explores deliberative democratic approaches to polarising human rights cases, constitutional design in divided societies, and armed conflict. He is co-leading (with Allison McCulloch and Ian O'Flynn) a collaborative Oxford University Press book project on Deliberative Peacemaking, which draws on more than 30 contributors from 14 countries.

The ANU China Seminar Series is supported by the Australian Centre on China in the World at ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

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