Patron

Keith Bennett is the founder and Patron of the Xi Jinping Thought Study Group as well as the Patron of the Institute for Independence Studies. He has been a student of socialist development, and particularly Chinese Marxism, for over half a century, as well as an active participant in a wide range of progressive political activities. Over more than four decades he has travelled frequently and extensively to the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, meeting senior leaders of both countries.  He has written widely, presented papers to conferences on four continents, and is regularly consulted by governments, political parties and others. He is an Editor of the online platform Friends of Socialist China. 

Managing Director

Hugh Goodacre was formerly Curator in the Asia, Africa, Pacific Department of the British Library (1972-96), and since 2005 has been Lecturer in the History of Economic Thought at University College London, where he also serves as a member of the university’s Academic Board.

 Publications

Director 

Peter Hogg, who has been a friend of China since the late 1950s, has long participated in anti-imperialist activities, not least in relation to Africa. He has also contributed to solidarity with the Irish people’s struggle for self-determination and the Korean people’s struggle for national reunification.

For long working professionally as a librarian at the British Library, his publications include an authoritative bibliography, The African Slave Trade and Its Suppression, published in 1973. He is also a leading translator of literary and technical works in Swedish, German and other languages.

Director 

Janet St John Austen has been active in organising friendship activities with China since the late 1960s, when she served as Coordinator of the 48 Group of British Traders with China (1968-79), from which position she moved on to serve as General Secretary of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) (1979-81). Her subsequent career has included financial administration, eleven years (1995-2006) at the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers, and a year (1988-9) as Press and Information Officer for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in London. She has also contributed to the work of Medical Aid for Palestinians and other friendship, solidarity and charitable causes and has lived and worked in the Middle East.

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