All Media - Coverage of the Asia-Pacific Region - Winner

Rowan Callick, The Australian, "Brave New China: Torn Between its Present and its Past"

Rowan Callick has worked hard to bring readers glimpses behind China’s curtains of information control.

In a series of complex and nuanced stories that could only originate from solid reporting and local knowledge, Callick found characters to illustrate the tensions and transitions of the ever-evolving nation.

From a profile of the "Sun King", living the dream of economic advancement, to the darker side of atrocious working conditions in Shantou, a 4 million-strong manufacturing centre also known as "Toytown", Callick writes with elegance and authority.

Callick worked in Papua New Guinea from 1976-87, becoming general manager of a local publishing group.

Then for almost 20 years he held various positions with The Australian Financial Review, including as its Hong Kong-based China correspondent from 1996-2000.

He joined The Australian at the start of 2006 as its Beijing-based China correspondent. In 1995 he won the Graham Perkin Award for Australian Journalist of the Year for his writing on PNG and the Pacific, and the Walkley for coverage of Asia for 1997.

Judges’ comments

In a series of articles exploring "Brave New China", Rowan Callick provides a fascinating account into the people and issues at the heart of the cultural and economic changes driving China’s modernisation. By telling the stories of an Australian citizen who is now the richest man in China, the workers inside the engine room of China’s global toy industry and the dissidents and artists at the forefront of the country’s intellectual heartland, Callick takes readers on an enthralling journey into this complex society.