Greg Sheridan - Career

Career

Sheridan first joined The Australian in 1984 and worked in Beijing, Washington, and Canberra before starting his tenure as foreign editor in 1992. Writing on and from the Asian region since the 1980s, Sheridan specializes on Asian politics, and has written four books on the topic, plus a book on Australia-U.S. relationships. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney.

Sheridan has been a staunch supporter of closer ties between Australia and its Southeast Asian neighbors, particularly Singapore and Indonesia. In journalist John Pilger's book Hidden Agendas, Sheridan was accused of being a "reliable ally" of the Suharto dictatorship while serving as the foreign editor of The Australian. In particular, Pilger noted Sheridan's defense of Indonesia following the Clinton administration's critique of Suharto's human rights records, as well as the Australian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee following its confirmation of the Santa Cruz Massacre. Sheridan stated that "even genuine victims frequently concoct stories". He was a vocal critic of Prime Minister John Howard's intervention in East Timor in 1999, and during 2006 called for the removal of Mari Alkatiri as Prime Minister of that country.

Sheridan is also a supporter of the Australian government's anti-terror legislation and argues the deportation from Australia of American leftist activist Scott Parkin was well founded. He has also argued in support of the notion that George W. Bush will be judged one of the great presidents of the United States. Consequently he argued in favor of the conservative candidate in the 2008 campaign, John McCain, and turned his disappointment on Barack Obama's victory into a denial of the "Noam Chomsky-John Pilger-Phillip Adams" view of the USA.

In reference to the 2011 Egyptian protests, Sheridan wrote that "What is happening in Egypt and across Arab North Africa more generally represents a distinct new phase in the existential crisis of Arab civilisation."