Jack, a Brisbane native, studied for a Bachelor of International Relations at the University of Queensland before moving to Beijing midway through 2010 on the Prime Minister's Australia Asia Outgoing Undergraduate Award. The award is given to a select number of Australian undergraduate students annually to undertake research at a university in Asia for up to one year as well as complete an internship, and is part of the Australian government's billion-dollar Endeavor Awards scholarship initiative.

In Beijing, Jack studied Chinese and China-Australia relations at Peking University and economics at the Guanghua School of Management before undertaking an internship in 2011 at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. During this time he became heavily involved with the young Australian expatriate community in the capital and was a natural choice to attend the inaugural Australia-China Youth Dialogue in 2010.

At the 2010 ACYD, Jack says Australian delegates were keen to discuss national identity and perceptions of Australia in China. "We were aware that Australia is a fairly insignificant side thought when Chinese gaze out at the world, and that, politically, we are usually viewed through the prism of our fraternal relationship with the United States. We may not be able to change that, but at the Dialogue we did have some success in tackling the misconception that Australia is a country consisting entirely of farms, mines, beef and wine," he says.

Jack says that there is an inherent paradox in the way Australians present their country to China and the world. "Overseas, we cringe off the clichés when someone stuffs 'surfing', 'sun' and 'Crocodile Dundee' into one sentence. We go to great lengths to espouse the depths of our multiculturalism, and yet fall back on the clichés when marketing ourselves as a holiday destination. One of the ACYA's goals is to move beyond stereotypes and engage in deeper discussion."

One topic that proved most interesting for China delegates in 2011 was the Chinese Diaspora in Australia, says Jack. "This community has old roots – tens of thousands of Chinese migrated to Australia seeking fortune in the 1850s during the Victorian Gold Rush. Chinese delegates took particular interest in the success stories of the descendents of these early immigrants."

Mr. Jack was responsible in 2011 for conducting the inaugural ACYA Perceptions Poll, designed to gauge the attitudes of the young Australians toward China and vice versa. Focusing on economic development, society and culture, education, environment and diplomacy, the survey was conducted through the ACYA website, via face-to-face interviews at Australian universities and by CUMU in China. Australian respondents showed a strong interest in China, and around 87 percent said China was either moderately or very important to Australia's economic growth and prosperity. The survey also revealed some findings at odds with mainstream political and media commentary in Australia – only 13.6 percent of Australians said their country accepts too much Chinese investment, with 50.6 percent saying current levels are acceptable.

Jack says the now-annual ACYA Perceptions Poll survey will be refined and broadened in scope, and he is hopeful it will come to influence policy makers' decisions vis-à-vis bilateral youth relations in the future.

We Are the Youth

Tom Williams, from Perth, Western Australia, is national president of ACYA's China chapter for 2012. Like Christian Jack, Williams' interest in China was piqued largely at university. "I was exposed to Chinese in primary school for a few years, during which I was content with a command of numbers one through 10. On enrolling at the University of Western Australia (UWA), I happened to drop in on a first-year Chinese class and was won over by the class's boisterous teacher, Mrs. Wang Yi. But it was only after I participated in a university study tour to Hangzhou and Beijing over the Southern Hemisphere Summer of 2008-09 that I really delved into all things China. I realized I knew very little about this important, fascinating and vibrant country. I was ignorant; but I was hooked," says Williams.

Williams, like Christian Jack, is beneficiary to the wealth of scholarships available to Australian university students studying Chinese at tertiary level. In 2010 he was awarded a Chinese government scholarship through the Confucius Institute at UWA and pursued a two-semester course of Chinese language studies in Beijing at Renmin University. In 2011 he was recipient of the same scholarship as Jack, the Prime Minister's Australia Asia Endeavor Award, and is now studying international relations and law at Peking University. He plans to pursue further study in Chinese law, possibly in the form of a Master's Degree at Renmin University. All courses in Mandarin, of course.

Williams became involved with ACYA in 2011, sensing the need for Australians in Beijing to seek greater engagement with the city and the Chinese youth who call it home. "Most young expatriates who reside in Beijing use it as a launching platform in seeking opportunities, contacts and expertise. Then they leave. At ACYA we want Australians in Beijing to make greater contributions to the social, cultural and civil life of the city. Beijing shouldn't be a transit station on the subway to somewhere else, but rather a place to call home," he says.