This book is a unique and original contribution to the knowledge of transcultural engagement between the ¿East¿ and the ¿West¿; notably between China and Australia.

The collection explores how the global system universally interrelates East and West, showing how this interrelatedness offers the promise of progress but can evoke the counteracting trend of tribal nationalism. The book addresses the connectedness of human progress by exploring how globalization creates new dynamic interfaces between East and West and how rather than clashes of culture there are growing forms of reciprocity between civilizations and a shared awareness of how humanity is connected through knowledge and international mobility.

Professor Greg McCarthy was the BHP Chair of Australian Studies (2016-2018) at Peking University in the School of International Studies. He is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Political Science University of Western Australia.  Professor McCarthy has published widely on China and Australia and higher education including Governing Asian International Mobility in Australia with Xianlin Song (2020), Indigenising Australian Studies in China (2020), China in Australia: The Discourse of Changst with Xianlin Song (2018), and The Proletarianization of Academic Labour in Australia with Xianlin Song and Kanishka Jayasuriya (2018).

Professor Youzhong Sun is Vice-President of Beijing Foreign Studies University and serves as the President of the Chinese Association for Australian Studies, the Chinese Association for Intercultural Communication, and the China English Language Education Association. He is the author of a number of books including Decoding China's Image: A Comparative Study of the China Reporting by The New York Times and The Times 1993-2002, The Symbol of American Spirit: John Dewey's Social Thought, Modern American Popular Culture, Approaching America, and American Cultural Industry. He has published more than 100 articles and is the translator of several works.

Xianlin Song is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia. She is the author of six books and over thirty articles that address issues such as feminist literature in China, transcultural knowledge production, international student mobility and Australian literature in China. Her recent books include Governing Asian International Mobility in Australia (with Greg McCarthy, 2020), Everything Changes: Australian Writers and China (with Nicholas Jose, 2020), Transcultural Encounters in Knowledge Production and Consumption (with Youzhong Sun, 2018), and Women Writers in Post Socialist China (with Kay Schaffer, 2014).

Part I The Theorising Connected Civilizations Connected Humanity.- Chapter 1 Theorising Connectedness in an Era of Globalisation.- Part II Cultural Engagements and Exchanges: Australia and China.- Chapter 2 Tensions between Multiple Connections.- Chapter 3 Connectedness and Disconnectedness: China and Australia in COVID-19.- Chapter 4 Connecting Shanghai and Sydney.- Chapter 5 Will Confucian Political Idea "All-under-Heaven" Contribute to the Relation between Australia and China?.- Part III Connected through Global Education.- Chapter 6 Reimagining the Communitas? On the Need for Critical Intercultural Education in Connecting Humanity.- Chapter 7 What if Chinese MinzuEeducation Was the Answer to the Failure of Diversity Education the "West"?.- Chapter 8 Transcultural Education in Practice: 'Writing China in Country'.- Chapter 9 To What Extent Are Chinese International Students Integrated into Academic and Social Life in the University of Western Countries?.- Chapter 10 Ethno-Racial Labels, Perceived Exclusion and Resistance: A Grounded Theory of American Migrants' Experiences of Being the Other in Mainland China.- Part IV Connected through Global Environment.- Chapter 11 Val Plumwood and Lazozi in the Age of Anthropocene.- Chapter 12 Internationalising Ecological Civilisation.- Part V Connected through Texts and Cultural Practices.- Chapter 13 National Extinctions: China, Australia, and Narratives of Extinction.- Chapter 14 Yiwarra Kuju-One Road: Storytelling and History-Making in Aboriginal Art.- Chapter 15 "A Time of Dreams, Enthusiasms": Ralph de Boissière's China in 1957-58.- Chapter 16 "The Train for Directions Home": Interculturality and Transculturality in Sinéad Morrissey's "China".- Chapter 17 Provoking Intimacy and Creativity: Liminal Smellscape in Brian Castro's Transnational Writing.