Craig Smith

Associate Professor Craig Smith serves as Associate Professor of Translation Studies (Chinese) at the Asia Institute in the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. He is also Deputy Director of the Asia Institute. Smith holds a PhD in East Asian History. His research specializations include translation studies with a focus on Chinese-English translation, Confucianism, regionalism, Asianism, and Chinese intellectual history. As a historian of modern East Asia and translator, he explores the intersections of translation and historical discourse in East Asian contexts.

Smith's major publication is the book Chinese Asianism, 1894–1945, published by the Harvard University Asia Center as part of the Harvard East Asian Monographs series (444). This work examines Chinese intellectual discussions of East Asian solidarity, analyzing them in connection with Chinese nationalism and Sino-Japanese relations. It covers texts from after the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to Wang Jingwei’s failed government in World War II, demonstrating the depth of pre-war discourse on Asianism and its influence on the rise of nationalism in China. Asianism represented a call for Asian unity based on racial or civilizational commonalities, yet advocates often used it to advance their own agendas, with international regionalism efforts spurring the construction of Chinese nationalism. Through translations and interpretations of Japanese perspectives, Asianism shaped Chinese ideas of nation and region, leaving a legacy in concepts and terms that persist into the twenty-first century. Other scholarly contributions by Smith include Taking China to the World: The Cultural Production of Modernity, Monroe Doctrine Redux: New Americanism and the Echoes of Empire in China and Japan, and Contradiction. His research has been recognized with the Asia Study Grant from the National Library of Australia for work on Chinese perspectives. Smith engages in public discourse through podcasts and seminars, such as discussions on Taiwan in mainland Chinese literature and film.

Professional Email: craig.smith1@unimelb.edu.au