Event: In conversation with John Garnaut and Merriden Varrall

On 9 October, John Garnaut and Merriden Varrall discussed what corruption means in China today, drawing on their experiences living and working in Beijing. Since Xi Jinping came to power in China in 2013, he has instigated an unprecedented crackdown on corruption. But reciprocating gifts and favours has long been the basis of the social system in China. How do people know the line between acceptable and criminal behaviour in China as political demands shift?  John and Merriden drew upon their own experiences of encountering corruption while working within the Chinese system – from appropriating coal mines to offering red envelopes for better grades – and examine what anti-corruption reveals about Chinese society and politics.

Before joining the Lowy Institute, Dr Merriden Varrall was the Assistant Country Director and Senior Policy Advisor at UNDP China, where she worked for the past three years on China's role in the world, focusing on its international development cooperation policy. Merriden has spent almost eight years living and working in China, including lecturing in foreign policy at the China Foreign Affairs University and conducting fieldwork for her doctoral research. Prior to that she worked for the Australian Treasury. Merriden has a PhD in political anthropology from Macquarie University, Sydney, and the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Her dissertation examined the ideational factors behind China's foreign policy. She has a Masters Degree in International Affairs from the Australian National University, and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Technology Sydney. 

John Garnaut is Fairfax Media's Asia Pacific editor. Most recently he was China correspondent. John graduated in law and arts from Monash University and worked for three years as a commercial lawyer at Melbourne firm Hall & Wilcox before joining the Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 2002. He became the Economics Correspondent in the Canberra press gallery and in 2007 was posted to Beijing.

In 2013, John won the Lowy Institute's inaugural Media Award for his China reporting.