Keynote speech by Carrie Gracie, British Association for Chinese Studies Conference

The Lau China Institute is pleased to announce the Annual Conference of the British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS), to be held at King’s College London from 12-14 September 2018.

The BACS Annual Conference Keynote speech will be delivered by Carrie Gracie. Carrie grew up in north-east Scotland and set up a restaurant before completing a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. She spent a year teaching in two Chinese universities and then built a small film business, before joining the BBC in 1987 as a trainee producer. She went back to China as the BBC's Beijing reporter in the early 1990s and served as China correspondent and Beijing bureau chief until 1999 when she returned to the UK to focus on presenting. For several years she anchored the morning slot on the BBC News Channel and hosted the weekly BBC World Service programme The Interview.

In 2014, she took up a newly created post as BBC China Editor and has since covered many news stories in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She has also made documentaries about China for BBC TV and radio, winning prizes including a Peabody and an Emmy and commentating ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Her academic qualifications include degrees in Mandarin Chinese and Interactive Media. In January 2018, Carrie left her post as BBC China editor in protest at unequal pay, publishing an open letter to BBC audiences on the subject and appearing before a parliamentary select committee. She has since returned to BBC HQ as a news presenter and continues to campaign for an equal, fair and transparent pay structure at the BBC. For more on Carrie's China work, visit her website: carriegracie.com

Tickets are free, but please register here.