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| Australian Embassy, Peking, 1976. Ambassador Steve FitzGerald |
... I wanted to get a photo of the Australian Embassy in Peking — as it was then in 1978.
I wasn't sure I had one myself, so I hie me to Mr Google and Lo!
The very first photo to pop up was the one above. Perfect!
The man standing there is then Australian ambassador to China, Dr Steve FitzGerald. He was our first Ambassador to China appointed by Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1972 when Australia shifted our recognition from Taiwan to the Mainland. From Taipei to Peking.
And that circled window? That's my office which I took over from predecessor Sam Gerovich in 1978. From my China arrival in 1976, I'd been given two years of full-time Chinese language training, courtesy of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs. That is to say, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer. I hope I gave them value for money. I was a Third Secretary in the embassy for four years.
To the right of my office, in the pic above: office of the ambassador's secretary and the Ambassador's office, far right top floor.
To the left, going left, another Third Secs office for my colleague Peter Rowe, later to become Australia's Ambassador to South Korea. Then Second Secs office, Dr Danny Kane, later professor of Chinese at Melbourne Uni.
Then Counsellor David Reese and Minister Reg Little, later Frank Millner, of all of whom I know little in these 40 years.
So the offices were more senior the further from the Ambassador.
Next level below were the offices of the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) and ground floor offices were for Consular (passports, visas, etc) and admin.
So that's where I spent my early working days in China.
After Steve went back to Oz, to establish his own consulting company which I joined in 1983, I served with two other ambassadors, Gary Woodard and Hugh Dunn (rip) until return to Oz in 1982, to be seconded to the Office of National Assessments, a senior intelligence assessment outfit reporting to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. And then to Stephen FitzGerald & Co Pty Ltd.
Some time later, in the mid eighties, IIRC, the embassy moved to a much bigger purpose-built edifice, rather more fearsome and security-minded.
The one above had basically no security: a somnolent guard at the gate was pretty much it.
Memories...
I sometimes find Deng Xiaoping in my dreams. He speaks guttural Sichuanese. Smokes and spits. Sometimes in a tent...In 1992 he told me his plans for further liberalisation.
Now we have Xi Jinping whose "China Dream" is a nightmare for many of us.
Sent from my iPhone
