I'm Grant Haver, I'm Zoe Weinberg, and this is next in foreign policy.

The podcast where the next generation of national security and foreign policy leaders

talk about the issues of today and tomorrow.

This is episode two in our mini series on media and culture, exploring the ways in which

media intersects with geopolitics and global affairs.

We're thrilled to have Helen Zhang on the podcast with us today.

Helen is the co-founder of Intrigue Media, a media tech company covering global issues

at the intersection of geopolitics, tech, and business.

She's also a global policy manager at Google and a former diplomat.

Helen, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Zoe and Grant.

Helen, how did you first become interested in foreign policy and at what point did that begin

to intersect with an interest in media?

So I was actually born in China and I grew up in Communist China in the 80s, under the

one child policy.

So for me, sort of the migration to Australia was always kind of cached in this really

interesting kind of context because my dad actually was able to stay in Australia as

a political asylum seeker after Tiananmen Square.

And so this element of Australia's place in the world and China's place in the world

had always been really interesting to me.

So I guess initially, as a kid, I was really fascinated with the rest of the world in addition

to China and Australia and seeing how I can contribute to it.

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