A snapshot of the life for Chinese-Australians shows three quarters say they are happy living in Australia, yet in the past 12 months one in five has reported being physically threatened or attacked.
Despite a barrage of negative reports and comments that have seemingly marginalised Chinese-Australians, a new report from the independent Lowy Institute finds that the number of Chinese-Australians who express pride in this nation is similar to levels of pride expressed across the wider community.
The Being Chinese in Australia report, a survey of 1,000 Chinese-Australians, is co-authored by researchers Natasha Kassam and Jennifer Hsu.
A key feature it that its survey results for Chinese-Australians were compared alongside another survey group, of 3,000 participants, representative of the wider Australian community.
This report is not presented as a definitive survey into the Chinese-Australian community. There are some gaps and some assumptions, particularly in relation to the use of Chinese social media, which are not supported by other studies.
Australia still a great place to live
Despite a torrid year for Chinese and Asian communities living in Western nations, the report says, “Most Chinese-Australians feel a sense of belonging, acceptance and pride living in Australia.”
However, it also finds, “A significant minority of Chinese-Australians have experienced discrimination of some kind in the past year. Many say the Covid-19 pandemic and the state of Australia-China relations contributed to that experience.”
The report also correctly identifies that the deterioration of Australia-China relations began in 2017, not as widely misinterpreted, in April 2020 with PM Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s unilateral call for a team, with UN-weapons inspector powers, to be sent into Wuhan.
Asked if they felt accepted in Australia, 63 per cent of respondents said yes, while 77 per cent of Chinese-Australian citizens and permanent residents say Australia is a good place to live.
Discrimination on the rise
Consistent with other surveys and media reporting across the past year, a high number of respondents said they had suffered discrimination linked to their ethnicity: 37 per cent felt they had been treated negatively because they were Chinese-Australian, while 18 per cent said they had been physically threatened or attacked in the past year.
Two out of every three respondents (66 per cent) pointed to Covid-19 as a being the contributing factor to the abuse they reportedly faced, while just over half (52 per cent) cited poor relations between China and Australia.
This strongly suggests China’s ongoing spat with Australia is not simply affecting exporters and Australia’s GDP.
There have been widespread media reports of attacks on Chinese-Australians, while the Asian-Australian Alliance, which is not widely known in the Chinese community as it predominantly operates outside of Chinese media and social media circles, has chronicled 512 reported racist attacks on Asian-Australians in the past year.
Anti-Asian discrimination not uniquely Australian
This is a global phenomenon. In May last year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.”
In the US in particular many reports have confirmed that Asians of non-Chinese ethnicity, such as Koreans, Japanese and even Filipinos, have suffered Covid-19 related racial abuse.
Another recent survey by the Scanlon Foundation reveals that a disturbingly high 47 per cent of the community harbours negative attitudes to Chinese-Australians. What makes that figure disturbing is that presumably these are attitudes of people not in direct contact with the Chinese community. Thus their views would likely have been shaped by mainstream media, social media and political commentary.
However, this is not a reflection of uniquely Australian attitudes, 2019 global survey conducted by Gallup found respondents across 143 nations found 46 per cent of people did not feel their communities were welcoming of migrants.
WeChat but what do “we” chat about?
The one set of data that is most widely open to interpretation are the answers in relation to the use of WeChat. In this respect the Lowy report falls down badly; while its survey results may be an accurate reflection of Chinese social media engagement, its failure to explain the true nature of WeChat is problematic.
In mid-2020 spy agency ASIO and the Australian Federal Police raided the homes of a number of Chinese journalists and that of NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane and one of his part-time staff members. Despite his public humiliation, Moselmane was never a suspect in a criminal investigation nor charged with any crime.
It has been widely reported that those raided were part of WeChat groups (similar to private WhatsApp groups) and the constant mainstream media suggestion since then is that operating a WeChat account is a nefarious activity and a vehicle for political interference.
The Lowy survey reports that 84 per cent of Chinese-Australians use WeChat for Chinese-language news, and 64 per cent use WeChat for English-language news.
For most Chinese people WeChat is mainly used as a communication app from which they can easily send messages, have voice and video calls. The WeChat moments function allows users to post on a timeline much the same as Instagram. The overwhelming majority of posts are updates on people’s personal lives, funny video clips from the internet and the most popular being images of food, social gatherings and places of interest such as parks and beaches.
When compared to Australian Twitter users, Chinese-Australian WeChat users are, by an enormous margin, far less political on their posts or commentary.
Don’t naturally assume political bias is directed towards CCP
When there is political commentary on WeChat it is not automatically pro-Beijing. Research from the Melbourne Asian Review on posts in the run-up to 2019 federal election found that the majority of content across accounts was supportive of the Liberal Party. It identified a number of accounts that have translated or reproduced Liberal Party advertising, whereas two accounts ran ads directly paid for by the Liberal Party.
The Lowy report oversimplifies the true nature and actual uses of WeChat for most Chinese-Australians. Its survey results run the real risk of feeding into false negative perceptions about WeChat’s role in influencing the political attitudes of Chinese-Australians.
Of those Chinese-Australians surveyed 74 percent refer to Chinese-language media based in China, such as Xinhua and People’s Daily as regular sources of information.
In one of the most comprehensive reports on Chinese media interaction in Australia, UTS Professor Wanning Sun found, “Chinese audiences, including migrants from the PRC, tend to harbour an innate scepticism or even simply an indifference towards Chinese state media propaganda.”
Even in Australia, where press freedom is viewed with reverence, research by Ipsos found that only 8 per cent of Australians have compete trust in what our mainstream news sources as telling them.
A worthwhile exercise
This report on its own is not enough to complete the full picture of the life of Chinse Australians. However, it is an important piece of the puzzle.
This is an edited version of an article that appeared in APAC News: Being Chinese in Australia: the good, the bad and the ugly – APAC News
Marcus Reubenstein is an independent journalist with more than twenty-five years of media experience, having previously been a staffer with a federal Liberal Party senator from 1992 to 1994. He spent five years at Seven News in Sydney and seven years at SBS World News where he was a senior correspondent. As a print journalist he has contributed to most of Australia’s major news outlets. Internationally he has worked on assignments for CNN, Eurosport and the Olympic Games Broadcasting Service. He is the founder and editor of Asian business new website, APAC Business Review.
Comments
27 responses to “Being Chinese in Australia: the good, the bad and the ugly”
I feld bad although I didn’t involved in any wrong doing by reading and heard all negativity by blaming China but glorified Trump; Pompeo and Media accused against China without 100% Correct Facts and Evidances
Tell you a joke. There was a new student who arrived in Australia. When going through customs inspection, the staff would routinely ask a few questions. What are you studying in Australia? I’m here to learn journalism. In other words, let me learn how your media brainwashed Australians. Nonsense, we Australians are a free and democratic country. Brainwashing can only happen in communist countries like China. Yes,yes, it looks like this.
A comprehension analysis of this Lowy Institute survey appeared in the South China Morning Post (SuLin Tan 4/3/2021) & the Conversion. This is yet another controversial article published by the Lowy Institute about Chinese Australians (CA) diaspora & China geopolitics. The first China bashing article was revealed by Tony Kevin (P&I) ” Natasha Kassam and the AFR have it wrong” on China-Australia tensions 01/12/2020 see; https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/natasha-kassam-and-the-afr-have-it-wrong-on-china-australia-tensions//
SuLinTan (SCMP 4/3/2021 see: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3123807/most-chinese-australians-feel-they-belong-discrimination-remains) wrote a comprehensive analysis of the Lowy Inst. survey. In general the Chinese Community Council of Australia (CCCA) agreed with the general comments reported in this article. However, we feel that overall findings of the survey is adverse to the CA community,. In particular, we support the views of our young CA Leaders, Ms Erin Chew, and Ms Wesa Chau. In addition, we believe the survey is politically motivated. For eg. the question on Democracy could be considered a leading question when most of the respondents are from the PRC and have less exposure to democratic values than those born in the British colonies. A finding from this question could give a wrong impression to readers that it applies to the overall CA diaspora. If this survey is commissioned by DHA then we believe the money is not well spent because in our opinion, it contradicts the sentiments expressed by the Minister Alex Hawke in a round table conference with CA Leader (3/3/2021) where the Minister was supportive of mending the broken Australia-China relations and promoting social cohesion and harmony in a multiculltural society . This is not the first time that Lowy Institute articles has made inaccurate statements about CA community as a result of their poor understanding on CA disapora and China geopolitics. Their expression of friendship to the CA community has not been geniune. (comment published SCMP 4/3/202 by Anthony Pun.)
CCCA agrees and thank Tony Kevin for his concerns expressed on SCMP when he said that
t “politicians such as Abetz” would prevent Chinese-Australians from fully participating in Australian public life, instead preferring to “keep their heads down”.
Hi Tony, I didn’t get an advanced copy of this report, so I only had a four hour window in which to review it and write up my analysis. In hindsight, with Department of Home Affairs funding one must question the level of input from Dutton’s office. I think the intent of the report was fine… however, the survey questions were in part seriously flawed.
Two things leapt out at me on first reading of the report. It lacked proper analysis of the survey data and the authors’ lacked the breadth of understanding of the Chinese community and Australia-China relations needed to make this data meaningful.
As I flagged in my longer review in APAC News, I felt their was a risk of some survey results being misinterpreted and leapt on by the anti-China forces in Australia. When one Twitter user – desperate to take Geoff Wade’s torch as the nastiest anti-China user on social media – Tweets the report without comment, that’s a bad sign. A couple of well-known racists have also used the report to fuel their xenophobic rhetoric.
As a research report/survey I think there is still merit in what the Lowy Institute has produced, it’s provided some data when there is little other to point to. As a media story it got its headline… the China-threat industry and the xenophobes won’t be unhappy but I’m sure they will be salivating awaiting the release of the next ASPI Report far more than basking in the findings of this one!
Sir, I would like to add to your findings on being Chinese in Australia. I do not speak for other Chinese, only for myself and my own family which has now three generations living in this country. My family and my wife’s family have lived outside of China for many generation. We therefore have a longer history of living as a minority in a new country than many who have ventured to live outside their countries of origin for the first time.
Let me first address situation from your indication of the good, bad and ugly. Firstly, the good that Australia offers a migrant is its practice of democracy – a practice that is closer to the liberal democracy that protects minority rights than many others that claim to be democracies. The law is not discriminatory, although there can often be abuse of the law through subtle ways. We therefore enjoy a level of protection by the law not found in other so called democracies. Australia is a relatively well educated society that can learn, and has learnt, deep lessons from its past excesses towards its indigenous minorities. Kevin Rudd’s apologies to indigenous Australians is a case in point. This awareness of injustice toward an un-empowered minority tempers intolerance towards minorities. Although I might add that there is persistent xenophobia and occasional outbreaks of racism. This is inevitable in any country. However, there are many instances from personal observation and experience that there are mainstream Australians who would stand up for the racially abused. For that I am thankful to my fellow Australians.
Research in social psychology has shown that when a government frowns on racism it reduces racism among its people. To this point in time, I have not seem an Australian government actively encouraging racism although there are a few individuals within the government who are xenophobic and advocate the right to bigotry. There are also those who do not wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Now for the bad. To say that racism does not impact the lives of many migrants would be a lie. It does happen often enough to make the lives of a coloured migrant unpleasant. It is harder for a migrant to get a job based solely on merit. This is hard to prove (although there are research papers available on the subject) but common experience among coloured migrants. Professionally, it is not unusual to find one’s professional credentials and expertise doubted by those who are not familiar with ones work. It is also not unusual to be shown dislike, quite suddenly and gratuitously, as one goes about one’s daily life. There are indeed many little and subtle ways of telling another person that they are not welcome.
Now for the ugly. Overt display of racism occurs from time to time, mostly associated with the way the political wind blows. We are all familiar with the surveys and TV clips on such ugly incidences. But this ugliness does not come only from the mainstream alone. It also comes from the minorities themselves against others whom they do not approve of. The ugliest of all in my experience is the casting of aspersions on the loyalty of Chinese Australians for no reason other than the fact that they are Chinese. I have pointed out in a couple of previous comments that in Britain three of the most famous spies for the Soviet Union were Anglos. This is not to suggest that Chinese cannot be spies for anyone for any reason. It is to state that disloyalty cannot be associated with race without that association being racist.
Finally, the biggest threat to a Chinese Australian is the possibility of being used as pawns in other people’s politics. It is not easy living as a minority buffeted by the current politics associated with China. But as the great German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche says, “That that does not kill you makes you stronger”.
Great points, and points that should be well noted by our policymakers!
Sir, thank you. I said that as honestly and as sincerely as I could.
“Chinese audiences, including migrants from the PRC, tend to harbour an innate scepticism or even simply an indifference towards Chinese state media propaganda.”
Nonsense. Chinese media are the most trusted on earth, by a considerable margin, as the annual Edelman Trust Survey has consistently demonstrated.
Hi Godfree, Prof Wanning Sun’s research (you quote) into Chinese-language media consumers in Australia is exhaustive, from my experience that comment are very accurate and they point mainly to indifference. I have a large and wide network of Chinese friends and (literally) none of them regards Chinese state media as a trustworthy source of information.
In relation to the Edelman survey – I am aware of the results but have not looked at the report or the survey questions. I will say this, disinformation across Chinese social media platforms reached stratospheric heights in recent years, in so far as someone will post a story without checking facts and the reposts move further and further away from the truth. Once again from my experience, I think the Chinese trust of their media is more of a reflection that you can’t believe most of what winds up circulating on platforms like Weibo or WeChat. It’s a bit like our governments – when the LNP won a general election with 40% of the vote, it kind of suggests we don’t trust them, we just trust them more than the alternative.
Can you provide substantiation–or obtain it from your Chinese friends–to support their incredulity?
One falsifiable, direct quote from an official Chinese source that attempts to deceive or mislead, accompanied by a link, will be sufficient.
Until then, I’ll go with Edelman and Harvard’s Ash Center surveys.
I think one of the core objectives of P&I will always be to raise and discuss solid public policy issues. I appreciate you have extensive experience across Asia, however, I have been to China more than twenty times, visited thirty cities and have many, many Chinese friends – my experience is real not anecdotal. In my writings for P&I and APAC News, I always reference multiple sources and put links in my stories.
As for your reliance on the Edelman Report I have now read it. There is not the slightest possible way it could be construed as a verifiable piece of research. It has no references nor footnotes and it was never ‘peer reviewed. It is a global survey from a tiny sample, its “informed public” (whatever that means) sample group for the entire planet was 700 people???
Plus it was produced by the PR company that Rupert Murdoch hired to “crisis manage” after it was revealed Murdoch’s loyal lieutenants hacked the mobile phone of a dead child just to grab a headline.
You attacked Edelman’s methodology, comparing its decades of face-to-face trust surveys to your personal impressions. Had you made your assertion about a Western country and I challenged it, you would have produced abundant evidence. But you produced none.
Yet Edelman gets unquestionably accurate results in its US survey: “This year’s shattering loss of trust in the United States represents a hinge moment in history. We’re at the end of the lifespans of the men and women who stormed the beaches of Normandy, who saved the world and built the U.S. liberal-led world order. Now that order seems to be unraveling in many directions. And we haven’t yet seen leadership in any area that promises to put us back onto a trajectory of trust.”
I’ll take Edelman, thanks.
Harvard has been runnning its own surveys since 2003 and their findings are in substantial agreement with Edelman: Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time, by Edward Cunningham, Tony Saich, and Jesse Turiel, the longest-running independent effort to track Chinese citizen satisfaction of government performance.
Pew and Asia Barometer, too, have been surveying Chinese attitudes to government for decades, and their findings buttress Edelmans: https://i.imgur.com/1bRzMTk.png
I have studied China longer than you have lived. I have yet to catch the Government of China publicly lying. If you have caught them, share your findings. If not, concede the point.
Admittedly I cannot speak for the Chinese migrants from the PRC, but while I do read the China Daily and CGTN regularly, I don’t see them as an “independent voice” and in fairness to the China Daily and CGTN, there was never any claim to be independent. I wouldn’t say I am sceptical of the China Daily and CGTN; I simply recognise they are not independent.
The Western media purports to be independent. But in reality, I don’t think this is the case. So in that sense, I think the Western media (which pretends to be independent when it is not) is worse than Chinese state media (which does not pretend to be independent).
What I find the worse of all is indication of lies in the Western media (e.g., about Xinjiang, Syria). At least I have not found examples of deliberate lies in the Chinese media (but perhaps I have overlooked them). I recognise that not being completely truthful is almost the same as lying. But I think there is still a line that is crossed when the media actually lies vs not being completely truthful.
Hi Kien Choong, spot on. Assuming the 75% of Chinese-Australians who consume Chinese State media support it is quite absurd. I have ABC24 on whilst working, I read the Nine Newspapers and Murdoch… but I believe little of what they say and think nothing of some of the people they employ to say it! But using the Lowy Report approach, a “survey” might suggest I agree with Australian mainstream media.
Yes, Kien Choong, I can’t agree with you more. The lack of sincerity and hypocrisy is utterly disgusting. Last night, I was reading a non fiction book about spying in the Middle East. I read that there are 400,000 Uighurs living in Turkey. The book was published in 2018. The author indicates that there was a steady stream of Uighur jihadi going to join jihadi groups in the troubled areas such as Syria and Iraq – about 4,000 Uighur jihadi were operating in Syria then. The biggest jihadi group was an organisation called Turkistan Islamic Party which has a goal of creating an Islamic State in Xinjiang province and the surrounding areas. One can see why the Chinese government is taking such drastic measures to suppress the movement, considering the fact that the Xinjiang region is going to play a pivotal role in China’s most ambitious scheme, the Road and Belt Initiative. There had been a terrorist attack in Kunming Railway Station where about 30 people were knifed to death and more than a hundred injured. Yet the Western press keeps coming up with unsubstantiated stories, stories cobbled together from bits and pieces passing off as new evidence, of Uighur persecution and a holier than thou attitude. They forget that when the Western countries catch terrorists, they are sent to long terms in prison. Torture was used in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.Those that went to join ISIS had their citizenship revoked and left to rot in refugee camps. Everyone knows that they have little love for Muslims; and yet they have suddenly become enamoured with Uighurs. The Chinese government has reason for what they do; the Uighurs too have reason for what they do. What is offensive is to use the Uighurs as a political tool by sanitising what they do with obviously fabricated narratives against China. While none of us are eyewitness to what is actually happening in Xinjiang, we do not like our intelligence to be insulted by ridiculous claims.
Thank you for reading my comment, and your reply. Interesting to read about the Uighurs in Turkey and joining Jihadi groups. If that’s true, I feel sorry for those Uighurs. There is a lot to admire about Islam (e.g., its concern for the poor, the widows, the oppressed …), but our loyalty to religion makes us vulnerable to manipulation by others.
I suppose any social identity we may have (e.g., Chinese, Australian, American) makes us vulnerable to manipulation, particularly by those who claim to tell us what it is to be “unAustralian” or “unAmerican”. Fortunately no Chinese leader has yet purported to define what it is to be “unChinese”! (Ha ha!)
Hi Teow Loon Ti, Xinjiang is a vexed issue. I think there is ample evidence of suppression of the Uyghur and other Muslim minorities. But genocide? That is an absurd media invention based on the research of a handful of (almost exclusively) US government-funded researchers and special interest groups. Both the ICC and lawyers at the US State Department investigated Xinjiang in 2020 and found there was insufficient evidence to lay charges of genocide – let alone launch a prosecution.
Up until 2018 the US listed Uyghur separatists as a “terrorist group” and as recently as Feb 2018 the US military announced it had killed Chinese Uyghurs in drone strikes on the Afghan side of the border with Xinjiang. The US also held a number of Uyghurs in Guantanamo Bay.
Yesterday, ABC News had an interview with (German-born US funded, right-wing fundamentalist Christian theologist) Dr Adrian Zenz who said the Chinese government was giving Uyghurs “financial incentives, free land to farm, free education and [other] substantial benefits” so as not to be critical of China. (https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/1367449331004014595)
As the American’s say, “If it’s orange, thick at the top, thin at the bottom and it’s being dangled in front of your face. It’s probably a carrot!”
The absurdity (missed by the ABC interviewer) is that Zenz’s latest narrative is that China is treating people well in order to mask the fact that they are treating them badly… come on!
Hi Kien Choong, Allow me to throw at you a different perspective. Australia, since Captain Cook, has either been a colony, or very willingly chosen to be part of the British or American imperial enterprise. And if you accept that today’s USA is still an imperial power, then NOTHING has changed from 1788 till 2021.
A lot of politics can be best understood if you can see Australia as a white colonial outpost. Having racist policies towards Chinese miners in 1850 earned politicians big political dividends. Dog whistling and blatant expressions of anti-China sentiments in 2021, and with zero regard to our Chinese Australian populace, are also electoral winners for the LNP.
I am not saying that Australians in general are somehow lesser human beings, but that is what our Federal body politic is. Pumped up by our own Deep State to be racist, anti-China and loaded with fear & loathing.
As for the Western corporate media, it just reflects the incredible soft power of the hegemon. Most of the geo-political ‘news’ are not news but stories generated from Washington or London. See: https://swprs.org/the-propaganda-multiplier/
The Western media can create ‘truth’ out of nothing, especially when it is gearing up to attack another country. Refer Gulf of Tonkin 1964, or Iraq WMD 2002/3, or the many many false flags used to attack dozens of countries over the years; Australia has always been there to fight with America. Morality does not come into it.
Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong are just canon-fodder because they are the soft under-bellies of China. There is an imperial need to whack China, and the easiest and cheapest way to do so is to provide ‘truth’ to the entire world. China may not be perfect, but I would not waste my time reading the fake news of the West about these 4 regions of China, including our own media here.
In contrast, the media of China, even if they are spending billions on it, are still in kindergarten. They are absolutely and completely outmatched. They are always put on the defensive. They even have to defend their own policies in Hong Kong, which is absurd! That is because the Western media over-powers the Chinese narrative, and till today, Chinese youngsters are prepared to sacrifice for some fictitious ‘human rights’ or ‘democracy’. (Leaving the right or wrong of the situation in Myanmar, you can see the same willingness to die for ‘democracy’ that has been fostered now for many years by American NGOs in Myanmar. See: https://www.ned.org/region/asia/burma-2020/)
Imperial Britain and now imperial America are masters at this game. Our role in Australia is to support this imperial enterprise.
The old ‘divide & rule’ continues today with imperial USA. Let me share with you too a US Military intelligence report on the Wahhabi religion in Saudi Arabia. Hard to believe, but the truth is Wahhabism was actually created by the British, around 1700, to divide Muslim countries: https://fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/wahhabi.pdf
I have written all the above to just make one point, especially to Chinese Australians. Just understand what you are up against.
We can whinge about being unfairly treated and so on. But aside from whinging, nothing is going to change. Unless our Federal body politic changes which it hasn’t since year dot. You can have 100 Chinese Australian associations – it won’t make one iota of difference.
We should not pitifully plead for acceptance like how we always do as a minority. We should very loudly call out the racists and shame them! Or we can choose to leave Australia for good if there is a better place elsewhere.
Hi, thank you for reading my comment, and for your interesting contribution.
I’m not sure I agree with all the claims you seem to make about Western mendacity. Personally I feel the issue has more to do with parochialism vs bad faith, but admittedly bad faith does exist.
Anyway, I think my broader point is that we can objectively critique many aspects of society without overstating our case. I feel that overstating our claims tends to be counter-productive in the long-run. Just saying!
Sure, everyone’s got a different take on these matters.
Also, when I allude to the imperial bad faith, I don’t mean individuals. I mean that in an organizational sense, as in, for example, the imperative for ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ that was part of a strategic outlook from Washington. Or our own ASIO/ASIS commandeering the entire Australian foreign and defence policies in collaboration with their CIA/NSA seniors. The last point having been extensively covered in fact on this P&I website in the last 2 years. Australia is simply the 3rd key leg of the Anglo imperium.
I don’t think I have overstated any ‘claims’. There is no need to claim anything. But perhaps you don’t believe some of the points I have made, which is ok.
On an individual level, I have excellent relations with ALL our fellow Australians. At least as good as if I am in the best Asian settings. By the same token, I have met many Americans on quite a few occasions, and the interactions have always been fantastically good. (You might even say that I am an honorary Anglo, having now spent most of my life in the Anglo world).
All the more so that we should not be tolerant of racist Australian politicians! On this point, I have always advocated an aggressive stance about calling out racist politicians. I know Chinese Australian associations have worked hard over many decades, but they have made very little difference. A waste of time really. (But my view is the view of possibly 1 among the 1.5 million of Australians with Chinese ancestry!)
Australians are disgraceful to fall for racism, and a lot of it is because they have been fed years of obsessive anti-China rhetoric in the media in this land. It has been disgusting. Now we not only have racists, but also hard right white supremacist groups popping up like mushrooms throughout the land. And Morrison says not one word about it despite the concerns of ASIO.
But what is far, far worse, was John Howard’s forays into xenophobia, racism, white privilege. Then the last 7 going on 8 years of Liberal Party use of racism where they have milked these appalling sentiments to death at every opportunity. They know what they are doing, they have no shame. I hold them far more accountable than anyone else. It is the duty of governments to unite people, not to salivate over division for the racist vote.
Australia was far less racist in the 1980s and even making progress with First Australians reconciliation, but now the ugliness of Howard’s legacy comes to the fore. The current Liberals have taken it to extreme levels, and still Labor says nothing to make it any better.
While Frydenberg sings himself songs of praise on the state of the negative GDP – which would be far worse if it wasn’t for the iron ore sales to China – he cannot bring himself to tell us so.
George, I think you are right in pointing the finger at John Howard, the supreme master in the Anglo world in the art of dog whistling. Dog whistling being something even seemingly well-educated Chinese Australians don’t quite understand. Let alone new migrants to this country.
Somebody even wrote a paper on it: https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/DP96_8.pdf
(I would add one from Morrison: ‘We will not trade OUR VALUES away. Apparent meaning: Australia is a democracy. We don’t compromise on our great values. Hidden meaning: China can get stuffed. We could not care less!)
Some choice extracts from the paper:
Prime Minister John Howard: ‘Despite what we foolishly say about ourselves from time to time, and despite the fact that we needlessly from time to time apologise to the rest of the world for being less than 100 per cent when it comes to a lot of these things, we are a very tolerant, understanding, inclusive people. We don’t give
ourselves enough credit for just how tolerant we are.
Apparent meaning: Australians are generally open-minded and generous.
Hidden meaning: There’s a lot that needs to be tolerated in Australia. With all that we have to put up with from ethnic communities, it’s amazing that ordinary Australians haven’t complained more.
Prime Minister John Howard:’ I don’t find any racism in the Australian public. I find constant references to racism in articles and news commentary and in the utterances of my critics on the policy. I don’t find, as I move around the community, people expressing racist sentiments about the illegal immigrants at all. It is not a racially based policy. We would apply the same approach irrespective of where the people were coming from.’
Apparent meaning: Australians are not racist, and nor are the Coalition’s immigration policies.
Hidden meaning: If others tell you your views on immigration are racist, that’s because their definition of racism is wrong. In fact, it’s okay to be suspicious of asylum seekers – the government agrees with you.
Prime Minister John Howard on the proposal that there should be no change to the custom of beginning the parliamentary day with Christian prayers: ‘I don’t say that disrespectfully of other religions but the – you know, the predominant religious culture of this country is Christianity. And, I mean, I always find it odd that you have to demonstrate your tolerance by denying your own heritage.’
Apparent meaning: Holding prayers at the start of the parliamentary day is a long held custom drawn from Australia’s Christian heritage.
Hidden meaning: Other religions are seeking to impose themselves on Australian society under the guise of political correctness. This is an affront to Christianity.
Thanks George, you make good observations. I’m (very much) a former Liberal, so I tend to give Howard the benefit of the doubt. I think he, and the LNP conservatives, are captives of their ideology and their ideas are founded in ‘reverence’ of our British heritage and ‘comfort & awe’ in America’s Anglo-centric global dominance, not to mention their idyllic view of its (failed/failing) democracy. Howard evolved in an Australia which was (to many) still under the warm glow of the mother country, I think his failing in Asia was to have a default position that treated Asia with “British colonial” suspicion and also the pursuit of purely transactional relations with our neighbours without any deep knowledge (or desire to gain it) of their cultures and customs. “We’ll but from you and sell to you but basically that’s the extent of the friendship.”
In terms of the current crop of Liberals I think you are spot on, they absolutely know what they are doing and how they are manipulating both the media and public opinion. It is racism and economic vandalism rolled into one. It is folly to be starry-eyed about past political leaders, but I find it hard to think of a more self-serving leader and cabinet in our history.
One of my Lebanese Australian friends said to me recently, “we copped it for more than a decade, now the Chinese community know what it feels like.”
Absolutely, I can’t agree more with all that you say. It’s like I discovered that I have the same view as you do on many, many things.
Thank you so much for replying to each and every comment maker.
If Australians told the truth in surveys the anti China xenophobia would be at 80 per cent. This is my experience for what it is worth. This is a vile country at this time.
Skilts, I am slightly more optimistic than you are, but you are not wrong either. Surveys only tell you so much. Once you scratch the surface, more of the truth comes out. Gregory Clark said as much in his comment in the related piece by Osmond Chiu last year. On the other hand, I have known a great number of Australians over the years who are great human beings, like folks everywhere. If one day, if the fear and loathing becomes too much, I too will go somewhere else!
I’m sure you’re right about people avoiding the truth on such surveys, which makes the 47% of people actually willing to admit they are anti-Chinese all the more disturbing.