Tom Cliff

Tom Cliff is an Associate Professor in Anthropology and Chinese Political Economy at the School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National University (ANU), where he investigates rural China's non-state welfare provision and political authority structures. As Deputy Director (Education) for his school and founding convenor of the elite PhB (HaSS) program, he bridges research and teaching in Humanities and Social Sciences.

His research focuses on:

• Charity innovation and model dissemination in rural China
• State-private enterprise relations during poverty reduction campaigns
• Institutional transformation in Xi Jinping's era
• Family-lineage-state dynamics in governance

Recent publications explore political norms in poverty reduction, institutional articulation in rural governance, and the role of elite networks. In 2018, his book Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang won the E Gene Smith prize for Inner Asian studies.

Supervision includes:

• Current PhD candidates: Stefanie Kam (securitisation) and Jasmine Wang (ultra-wealth in PRC)
• Past supervisees: Alex Pan (media perspectives), Alana Tolman (Bruneian education policy), and multiple MAPS/MA Advanced students

Projects:

• Funny Money and Political Authority in China (2019-2021)
• Welfare Entrepreneurs and Social Control (2018-2025)
• Collaborative research on Business-Local State Relationships (2014-2017)

He contributes to the ANU's Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions (ICEDS) through research on rural development and climate resilience, while maintaining active roles in education policy and institutional innovation.