The 2015 China Book Special Contribution Award goes to the Australian Sinologist and 2014 recipient of China’s "Friendship Award,[i]" Professor Colin Mackerras. Professor Mackerras has held several academic posts in and outside of China, including a professorship in the Department of International Business and Asian Studies at Griffith University, as Professor at Renmin University (2011-2013) and Distinguished Scholar of the Australian Studies Centre at RUC. The award will be conferred at a special ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, where Professor Mackerras is scheduled to give an acceptance speech. The China Book Special Contribution Award honors outstanding contributions of authors and translators in the fields of Chinese culture and Chinese-foreign relations and cultural exchange. The award was established in 2005; Professor Mackerras is the 23^rd recipient. An internationally renowned Sinologist, Professor Mackerras’s academic career has centered on China for more than half a century. In 1964, he and his wife first came to China to teach. Since then he has returned at least sixty times, whether on field research trips, as visiting scholar, or to teach. He has taught at RUC and Beijing Foreign Studies University on many occasions. Professor Mackerras’s main areas of research are Sino-Australian relations, Western images of China, Chinese traditional drama, and China's ethnic minorities. Noted works include The Rise of the Peking Opera; Chinese Drama: A Historical Survey; The New Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China; China's Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation; China's Minority Cultures: Identities and Integration Since 1912; and Western Images of China Since 1949. In 2013, the Chinese translation of Professor Mackerras’s monograph Western Images of China was published by Renmin University Press. RUC’s Professor ZHANG Yongxian and WU Di, a doctoral student in the School of Foreign Languages, undertook the translation. In his work, Mackerras traces Western conceptions of China since the founding of the People’s Republic, examining them from political, economic, and cultural perspectives. The book has sold more than 3,500 copies within a year of its listing; sales are expected to reach more than 6,000 copies in the next two years. Professor Mackerras’s work is based on his understanding of and reflections on China and the Chinese. His publications have enlivened debate on China in the Western world. Addressing the Parliament of Australia on November 17^th, 2014, President Xi Jinping expressed deep appreciation for Professor Mackerras’s efforts in promoting intellectual exchange between China and Australia. Professor Emeritus Colin Mackerras graduated from the University of Melbourne before earning an MA degree at Cambridge University and in 1970 completing his PhD at ANU (Australian National University). In 1999 he was elected to the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has won numerous awards, including the US-Australian jointly awarded “Media Peace Prize” (1981); the Cambridge "Twentieth Century Achievement Award" (1993); the Australia China Council "Outstanding Contribution and Achievement Award" (1999); and the Chinese "Friendship Award" (2014).   [i] The Chinese “Friendship Award” is the PRC’s highest distinction awarded to foreign experts.