Alexis Hooi

Alexis Hooi reports on how China’s partnerships in electric vehicles, green technology, tourism and agriculture are reshaping markets and communities, with a particular focus on Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific. His coverage follows the concrete impact of cross-border cooperation, tracking how Chinese capital, visitors and expertise translate into shifts on the ground for local industries and everyday life. He writes for China Daily, drawing on experience as a news editor and columnist alongside long-form reporting and commentary.

Chinese EVs reshape Australia's car market

Hooi’s automobile beat centres on the arrival of Chinese electric vehicles and what they mean for Australia’s car industry and consumers. In “Chinese EVs reshape Australia’s car market,” he shows how new entrants from Chinese manufacturers are changing brand choices, pricing and the overall mix of vehicles on Australian roads. The story situates EV uptake within a broader shift toward cleaner transport, linking product launches and sales trends to Australia’s evolving energy and climate priorities. It fits within his wider habit of using specific sectors as a lens on China–Australia economic ties, treating the car market as one more arena where those links are playing out.

His EV coverage sits alongside reporting from a forum where “Partnerships essential to green shift” is the central message, reinforcing that he treats automobiles as part of a system of green transition rather than in isolation. Together these pieces highlight how he follows corporate decisions, policy discussions and cross-border collaboration in transport and energy as a single story about how China-connected technologies are adopted and debated in Australia.

For communications around vehicles, batteries, charging or broader clean mobility, his work shows an interest in concrete market effects and the language of partnership rather than purely technical detail.

Partnerships essential to green shift

Green transformation is a recurring frame in Hooi’s reporting, often anchored in specific collaborations between China and other countries. In “Partnerships essential to green shift, forum hears,” he covers a gathering in Perth focused on how cooperation can drive the move to lower-carbon economies, placing local discussions within the context of China’s role in clean energy and industry. Earlier, in “Sustainable success,” he reports on a major geothermal renewable energy partnership between China and Iceland, highlighting how that project embodies a people-centred approach to development and environmental stewardship. He also looks at innovation-driven ties, as in “Chinese tech hub spurs Australian partnerships in innovation, industry,” where a technology centre in China becomes the springboard for new joint projects with Australian firms.

Across these stories, Hooi treats partnerships as both economic and values-based, stressing long-term sustainability, social responsibility and mutual benefit instead of short-term transactions.

Profiles such as “Vanguard vintner,” which follows a boutique vineyard focused on quality and social responsibility as it leads domestic winemakers onto the global stage, mirror the same emphasis on responsible growth within global markets. This mix of project-focused reporting and personality-driven features shows that he is interested in how individuals, companies and governments work together to embed greener practices in trade, investment and production.

His writing in this area is often framed around success stories and emerging models, making complex geopolitical and technical themes accessible through specific examples and personal narratives.

History through Chinese-Australian voices

Hooi regularly turns to culture and identity, using human stories to explore the long history linking China and Australia.

In “History through Chinese-Australian voices,” he gathers accounts that trace the experiences and contributions of Chinese communities, showing how individual memories and family histories form part of a broader national story. He extends this interest in roots and belonging in “Rediscovering their roots,” co-written with colleagues, which follows people returning to Lishui in Zhejiang to connect with ancestral heritage. These features focus on lived experience, rituals and place, rather than abstract policy debates, giving texture to how diaspora identities evolve across borders.

Hooi also writes lighter cultural stories with a strong sense of occasion, such as “Pandas’ birthdays spark a rush at Australian zoo,” which captures public enthusiasm and visitor surges around milestone events for iconic animals. Even in these pieces, he connects turnout, tourism and public sentiment back to the wider relationship between Chinese cultural symbols and Australian audiences.

His column work, including pieces like “Funny you should say that,” adds a commentary strand to this cultural reporting, allowing him to reflect more broadly on perception, language or current events in a voice distinct from straight news. Together, these stories show a consistent tendency to anchor discussions of China–Australia relations in everyday experiences and personal narratives rather than only in official statements.

NZ tourism surges on strong growth in Chinese visitors

Tourism and people flows form another pillar of Hooi’s beat, often linked explicitly to business and diplomatic ties.

In “NZ tourism surges on strong growth in Chinese visitors,” he reports on how rising arrivals from China are driving tourism numbers and revenue in New Zealand, treating visitor statistics as a measure of the health of bilateral engagement. “Fiji tourism rebounds amid record visitor arrivals” carries a similar thread, tracking how renewed travel demand, including from China, supports recovery and growth in another regional destination.

In “Pandas’ birthdays spark a rush at Australian zoo,” he returns to the tourism angle at a more micro level, focusing on attraction-specific turnout while still implying broader trends in interest and visitation.

His economic and agricultural pieces complement this focus on travel and exchange. “China, New Zealand reaping rewards of kiwifruit cooperation” follows kiwifruit as a traded product and symbol of wider agricultural cooperation, showing how joint ventures and shared expertise benefit producers and consumers in both countries.

“Australia’s ex-PM hails business ties with China” adds a political and business voice to the pattern, documenting how high-level figures publicly endorse commercial links and their importance for national economies. Read together, these reports underline his interest in the practical outcomes of diplomacy and business initiatives, whether those outcomes appear as tourist arrivals, product exports or new investment.

The combination of visitor-focused stories and trade pieces presents a coherent picture of China–Oceania engagement grounded in measurable activity rather than rhetoric.

Beyond these themes, Hooi’s author profile notes his work as a national news page editor and columnist at China Daily, and his prior experience in other media and organizations. That background helps explain his comfort moving between hard-news reporting, feature writing and opinion, and his ability to situate sector-specific developments - like EV adoption, wine exports or geothermal projects - within larger narratives about development and international cooperation.