The Chinese Question refuses to go away. It’s testing the inheritors of White Australia.
On 6 June 2020 the Sydney Morning Herald reported: Birmingham says China’s travel warning over racism has ‘no basis in fact’.
As Trade and Tourism Minister he would say that, of course. China has been the biggest single source of international tourists and students in Australia. Nor can he be seen singing off-tune to the recent Deputy Sheriff bugling of Morrison and Payne.
As a layman, I am surprised that Bermo could be so insensitive to the official statistics available to him from our Human Rights Commission, and to the numerous media reports on attacks upon the Chinese in public and at work. Surely his advisors would have briefed him on the latter, at least.
Looks like a furphy. He was not just “economical with the truth”, like using the word “riots” to cover up the atrocities of the well-planned Lambing Flat Attacks upon the Chinese in 1861, when it was sporting to cut off the 1200 scurrying Chinese gold-seekers’ pigtails, some with scalps attached. A number would be assembled later, a trophy, and paraded through the streets of Lambing Flat, a frontier town where our sacred rule of law was all but unenforceable.
Bermo did add that Australia was “the most successful multicultural and migrant society in the world”, and “The Chinese-Australian community is a significant and valued contributor to that success story.”
Unfortunately talking up Chinese contributions does inadvertently resurrect the thawing days of White Australia, after WWII, when the remaining Chinese had to be re-packaged as having done their hard yards in nation-building, albeit as dependable labourers, and therefore worthy of being accepted as Australian.
Back in July 11, 2013 the Brisbane Times headlined: The “father of Chinatown”, Eddie Liu, farewelled at Brisbane’s City Hall.
Philip Ruddock was there, a friend; the Premier, the Lord Mayor and local politicians of course; the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane (his wife is an Irish Catholic); but no mention of other dignitaries, like Police Commissioners, QCs, judges, or the ex-GG, feted by Eddie year in year out at his Chinese Club Chinese New Year receptions.
Hardly any Chinese attended his Town Hall send-off.
It was the end of an era.
So who was Eddie Liu?
Eddie was born in Hong Kong in 1922. Lived there with his Cantonese mother, whom his Melbourne herbalist father had married on a visit, until he was 15. The White Australia wall was impenetrable then. But the Rape of Nanking must have intervened. Eddie joined his father in 1937 and continued his schooling. In 1942, married with one daughter, he was deployed to Brisbane to act as interpreter for the 2000 Chinese seamen harbouring in Oz, now building landing barges for the US of A command at Bulimba on the Brisbane river.
After the War he started delivering vegetables and fruits to hospitals, hotels and ships from the Brisbane Markets. His family was growing.
In 1954 Eddie founded the Chinese Club, and led the small surviving Chinese community to build a club house on the site of an old Council tip. Eddie had got the land for free! It was a remarkable beginning, an enduring achievement. He would become the supremo of the Club for life.
When I moved to Brisbane in 1979, 25 years later, Eddie was regarded by the white VIPs he had got to know as the Chinese community leader. He had also earned the respect of a number of Hong Kong cooks for whom he had managed to get “special skills” visas. But by then many of his 1954 compatriots had parted with Eddie, and the Chinese community had just been numerically overwhelmed by the recent influx of Chinese from Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. These latter-day Chinese immigrants did not warm to Eddie, and vice versa. Eddie, in short, had become the Leader of a one-man band.
All the same he remained the quintessential Chinese entrepreneur favoured by the gate-keepers of White Australia.
In 2010 the Queensland Government named Eddie as one of five Queensland Greats. “Dr James Edward (Eddie) Liu OBE OAMwas a humanitarian and preservationist internationally recognised as a prominent Chinese community leader in Australia …”
It’s a citation that a practised Chinese hagiographer would be proud of.
His 2007 honourary doctorate: effectively a marketing coup by the University of Queensland to channel the river of gold that is the PRC students. The humanitarian effort: providing low-fee aged-care apartments was an integral part of a “multicultural/business” migration scheme. Internationally recognised! Perhaps, in Hong Kong, ever so briefly: he once showed me the front page of one Hong Kong broadsheet featuring his venerable and reflective self, bemoaning the antics of Pauline Hanson. But back in Brisbane his voice was absent in the public space.
I knew Eddie for 30 years. Life had dealt him a bad hand. His string of small business ventures did not seem to have turned into money trees. But he looked after his family well, and would have given his six children a solid sense of belonging as he steadily gained recognition amongst the VIPs in Brisbane. If he had been a tad entrepreneurial with his position as the “Chinese Community Leader”, as some have murmured, then this pales into insignificance when compared with the spectacle of our ex-Ministers and top public servants making themselves money-conglomerating compradors for Chinese, French, mining, pharmaceutical, and American war-mongering corporations.
All the same, mythologising entrepreneurs like Eddie Liu is regrettable. It makes it just about impossible for Chinese Aussies outside that confine to enter public life.
In 2012, Charlie Teo, in his Australia Day address in NSW, said that racism was still alive in Australia. The media went vicious. My online comment offering examples in support of Charlie’s view was quickly removed. Until then Charlie had been the intrepid brain surgeon, the cult hero feted by journalists focused on merchandisable news. Today his enviable status remains undiminished: the intrepid surgeon; training brain surgeons at Harvard; giving three months a year pro bono to developing countries.
Yet Charlie’s 2012 comeuppance is the fate awaiting every Chinese Aussie who does not conform to the image of the cosmeticised John Chinaman.
This probably explains why so many Chinese MPs were of the token variety. A number have self-combusted during State upper house sinecures. But unlike Charlie Teo, not one of them has shown the courage or integrity of Indigenous senator Neville Bonner, who stood as an independent after having been dis-endorsed by the Liberal Party for speaking up and crossing the floor to denounce his Party’s Aboriginal policies. Aye, he rebelled against his designated token-black role. (In passing, it is worth remembering that had Peter Beattie, then Secretary of ALP Queensland, honoured his “No worries, Nev!” pledge to direct ALP preferences to Bonner, Bonner would have been our first independent Aboriginal Senator, ever! As it was he missed out on a mere 0.06 of a quota. Beattie, as Premier later, named a government building after Bonner. In penance I hope.)
Compared with Charlie Teo, Billy Sing, our Gallipoli hero, fared worse. He died in a boarding house, in 1943, aged 57, with just a few shillings in his pocket. Where was the Returned Soldiers’ League? Born of a Shanghainese father (a dejected gold-seeker) and an English mother, he was not one of us. Yet in truth he was the quintessential Aussie knockabout of the bush, as mythologised in Russell Ward’s The Australian Legend. Had Billy been white, and gone to a private school, he might have won Gold for shooting clay pigeons, and gone on to build a celebrity career. The Chinese were not one of us: not straight after WWI anyway. Billy our Gallipoli Assassin: yes! Snipered up to 300 Turks! Billy our neglected Chinese war veteran? Forget it.
The current Covid-inspired racism against the Chinese is just another outbreak of the White Australia virus.
This time, unlike in 1996 when Pauline Hanson exploded on to the political stage, the pollies are not adding fuel to the fire. All the same, though, too many of them are flogging the line that there is no racism in Australia. Minister Allan Tudge twittered in April that “99.9% of Aussies would be appalled by racist attacks …” A statistic Bermo missed?
In the long term the only insurance against future anti-Chinese outbreaks is to vaccinate the population: a recalibrated and well-delivered curriculum for our school students; the greater presence of Chinese with demonstrably healthy character and competence in our Parliaments, for directorships on boards of GOCs, for prominent positions on Tribunals, for membership of University Councils, et cetera; and the greater inclusion of intellectually well-primed and socially acculturated Chinese Aussies in public discourse, on television, radio, and in newspapers.
Will we get there? Next time.
Below is a link to an ABC article containing a video showing the attack of two Chinese students in April.
Chinese international students defend Australia as a ‘safe’ educational destination.
Chek Ling arrived in Melbourne in 1962, on a Colombo Plan scholarship, to study electrical engineering. He never left. He has been an activist in the Chinese community since 1984. In 1988 he was spokesperson for the Queensland Chinese Forum to denounce the State Liberal Party. He is the author of Plantings in a New Land, an oral history of the Chinese in Queensland, published in 2001 under the auspices of Centenary of Federation Queensland.
Comments
17 responses to “What is to be done about the Chinese in Oz. (Part 1 of 3)”
A valuable essay and interesting discussion. Thank you Chek Ling.
But where Dr Ka Sing Chua writes:
“At the end of the day, Chinese Australians will have to try a little bit harder to achieve some of the wish-list you hope for at the end of your article.
“In the long term the only insurance against future anti-Chinese outbreaks is to vaccinate the population:….”
But it’s not an obligation on Chinese Australians. It’s for the whole of Australian society and Australian governments. Dr Chua’s name links to https://www.mapw.org.au/ – Medical Association for Prevention of War. I’m sure there that the burden of change does not rest with victims of war.
Chek Ling’s brief summary of Chinese Australia (CA) leaders in Australia only reflects the way how power & influence is given to John Chinaman by his White masters when he “tows” the line (lately meaning: great fund raiser). Some get big chunk of steak whilst others get the morsels. Hence the role of Uncle Tom best describes the rewarded. Then, the CA view has always been, a bit of morsel is better than no meat!
To Richard Barnes: There is no fear from educated Chinese Australian who would stood so low as to label you anti-Chinese (racial, political or otherwise) if your views were not intended to show racial bias. It is more likely that CA would want to be friends with you and enlist you to empathize with them.
As for Dr Charlie Teo, he is no difference from his predecessors who run centre of excellence for medicine ie. Prof John Dwyer, Prof Ron Penny, (Immunology, HIV) Prof Jim Biggs (Bone Marrow Transplant), Dr Victor Chang (Heart Lung transplant) and they are entitled to have their own professional “enemies” for whatever reasons, prestige and territorial will be on top of the list. In the defence of Dr Teo on this matter, since you also brought up Prof Woo (Sydney U) there is more than meets the eye because this case is controversial which involved the Australian health regulatory bodies which make judgments out of “reasonably believes”; & this brings the issue of “Sham Peer Review”( https://www.jpands.org/jpands2501.htm) into this discussion.
See : Multiple Abuse Of Two Points Of Law Issues Regarding The National Law In Australia (see: http://www.elaw.my/ELawArticleDisplay.aspx?info=o4iXnJXHU5TbBK5gW0) – peer reviewed Malaysian Law Review.
I’ve been following the police brutality and BLM movement on reddit (as one would, once one notices all the cheap sensationalist media get their news from it, usually with a good dose of racist rearrangement of facts or leaving out all the inconvenient videos). Here’s one that’s been doing the rounds for good old fashion go-back-to-where-you-came-from against a “China man” in the US:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/h78g1a/your_favorite_karen_makes_another_appearance/
The Black Lives Matter protest in the US is giving me a lot of hope. Hopefully it will have knock-on effects for racism against all races. And import it over here.
Political Correctness been suckin to such peoples;Journalist; Polititian, under cover as democracy liberal thinking, without realize been insulting, attacking. freedom of insulting etc.etc. and denial, coverup then refuse to respect or responsible as a fellow human. Some leaders could be read from the body langguage or their speech although promoting relligious believe in, I felt disgrace being a believer too . I believe, Australian has to be frank to rectified to face future world progress, unless Australian want to propergate WW3, Sad reallity our Politician Choose.
I understood Martin’s comment better when I put his words through the Google Translator (Chinese, but it may not be his language) so I thought I’d provide an edit of what I think his comment is (I suggest, if John agrees, Martin should just post in his preferred language in the future and provide a Google Translated English version below it – his opinions / comments should be judged on their merits and not automatically blocked by a language barrier):
[In my opinion, Martin says:] Journalists and politicians have been sucked into “political correctness” under [the unqualified catchcry] of “democracy” and [small-l] “liberal” ideology without realising that unfettered, some democratic and liberal ideas like [free speech] may manifest as [gratuitous] insults and attacks etc etc. [Using the same catchcry] they then deny or cover up [those insults and attacks], then refuse to respect [other people as fellow human beings] or take responsibility as a fellow human [being]. [One can] read some leaders from [their] body language or their speech [even while] they megaphone their religious beliefs. I felt ashamed as a fellow believer [of their faith]. I believe Australia has to be frank [in facing her past mistakes and strive to correct them] so as to keep up with the rest of the world as it progresses into the future, unless Australia wants to [be the driving force for] WW3. It’s a sad reality our politicians choose.
Great trial Yi Baizi and I can concur.
Thanks, Chek Ling, for an important piece; I look forward to parts 2 and 3.
However – and just by saying that word I already risk a conclusion being drawn that I am covertly anti-Chinese – I am very concerned that in this and other contributions in P&I, there is a tendency for any criticism of any Chinese person to automatically be seen as anti-Chinese prejudice.
Chek Ling goes to some length to give the treatment of Dr Charlie Teo, neurosurgeon, as an example. In this case, I can say with certainty that he is incorrect.
Dr Teo has been a polarising figure for two decades. See for example
https://www.smh.com.au/national/like-shooting-bambi-why-teo-critics-were-gun-shy-as-media-built-the-miracle-surgeon-myth-20190906-p52onc.html
There is no debate that he “will operate when others won’t”. But there is a very important debate about (i) the wisdom of such operations and (ii) the fees for the operations – of the order of $100,000.
On numerous occasions when Dr Teo’s practices have been brought into question – such as when he was removed from the Neurosurgical Society of Australia – there have been howls of outrage from Dr Teo and his supporters, claiming professional jealousy and anti-Chinese racism. This surfaced most recently in 2019, when academic urologist Dr Henry Woo wrote on Twitter that “on a search on GoFundMe for “Charlie Teo” there are 113 campaigns listed, that mention him as the surgeon for which donations are sought to pay for his services. I find this really disturbing.” The resultant trolling forced Dr Woo to close his Twitter account. But he is an Asian urologist, so it is hard to make a case against him of either racism or jealousy!
I have no doubt of Chek Ling’s sincerity. But as a medical practitioner with knowledge of some patients operated on by Dr Teo, my feelings are equally sincere, and motivated entirely by concern over the harm he does to vulnerable patients and families.
Richard, I too worry about “will operate when others won’t”. The “expected value” of waste; the moral issue of false hope; the prolonged stress for the family; the danger of falling into medical cultism.
Sadly, he is not alone. So many quietly do dubious spine surgeries for instance. Or hip replacement with known questional products. Not to mention all sorts “facelifts” and worse further down the body.
Teo’s risk-taking orientation is worrying. I was appalled by an ABC doco that showed him mounting the footpath on his rather fierce looking motorbike, rushing to the hospital. Irresponsible journalism I felt.
He was a good subject for my essay though. I didn’t think if it is ethical to just tell one side of his story. Elsewhere I have said that telling half the story in certain cases is in fact telling straight out lies.
Thanks for raising it, Richard.
I think it is fair to say that China has a great tradition of quackery which science is finding it hard to eradicate: also that there is a significant element of quackery in excessively remunerated surgery.
I forgot, Richard. I cannot see how you could be said to be anti-Chinese. Straight down the line I thought. And that is what is needed more than ever.
Hi Richard,
Blame the racists not the victims. It’s like the immigration debate. The racists have made democracy hard for everyone. If you’re not racist just say whatever you want. We’ve all had plenty of experience in our lives to spot the racist intent or lack thereof.
Also, FYI, it’s well known that people can be racist against their own race. There are theories of internalised racism and responding to social cues or external pressure. The argument that it can’t be racist if someone from the same race is saying or doing it is a common technique used by racists.
Teo is just one member of the Chinese-Australian community here (actually originally from Singapore as a child), and if he has acted in ways that are considered suspect to those who have experienced professional business relations with him, then he should be held accountable by those people. That fits the notion of objective criticism of how he does business, like for anyone in this country irrespective their ethnic origins. But you cannot tell me that other doctors in the health profession here, are not equally guilty of charging absurdly high fees and sometimes performing operations that are high risk – yet rarely do they get exposed in a plethora of ongoing newspaper articles in the way we have seen with Teo. We also have many somewhat greedy billionaires in this country who escape serious criticism regularly because they are of Western heritage.
The larger point I wish to make here is that Newspaper coverage of Teo is only a small part of years of negative coverage of anything that China does, or disproportionate vilification of Chinese business people in Australia (even if they are Australian citizens), Chinese business visa holders, or tourists, right through to the criticism of the CCP and anything China or Chinese people do – even if it is just building a bridge in China. I won’t discuss News Corp’s permanently biased anti-Chinese commentary in their newspapers, but the ongoing articles in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, have never a good word to say about Chinese people or China itself. They are cultivating prejudice and they allow racist views in their readers comments. If you can find a positive article in 9 Entertainment newspapers I’d love to see it. What is clear to me is that there has been nothing but a campaign of negativity thrust at anything Chinese, and they are pushing the US line at every opportunity. It does not seem to matter how that plays out here for people of Asian or Chinese ethnic backgrounds, and the government are completely in denial about racist attacks.
George, I wish I could shake your hand. You’re a man after my own heart. It’s probably unfair to name Channel 9 and its newly acquired papers without naming the usual suspects like Sky News and The Australian, and increasingly the SBS and the ABC. I agree the SMH / The Age should be specifically shamed. They are particularly sneaky with their censoring.
Ironically these manipulations are bolstering sympathy for the CCP while simultaneously antagonising Chinese who may otherwise have no love for the CCP and know more than the so-called China experts who can’t even read Chinese.
There is currently a bit of uninformed talk about Chinese students in Australia. In the early 2000’s I was involved in a UK company which prepared Chinese students for undergraduate and post graduate studies in UK and Australian universities. I was principal of one campus after lecturing in another campus. There were many students who would not be able to complete a degree in one of the universities we serviced, but there were many who would be successful. The reason they chose the more expensive option rather than studying in China was that they could not gain a place in a university there. In one city I worked in there were 450,000 uni students. Even though the student may pass the Gao Kao final high school exam, they may still fail to get a place in a uni because it is so competitive. So, if their parents can afford it they are sent overseas to study. They really wanted that degree certificate and from the most prestigious university possible. The very capable students applied directly to universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, MIT etc… One of my students went to Cambridge, then did a PhD at Oxford and is now in the US doing research on cancer cures. My experience at the time was that there were attempts in the UK to allow almost any student in (for the fees) and English levels were often ignored or extra tutorials would be provided. Some with less than adequate English tended to flock together with their own and even the good English speakers sometimes felt ignored by the locals. Probably much the same as here in Oz.
Congratulations for another good article.
At the end of the day, Chinese Australians will have to try a little bit harder to achieve some of the wish-list you hope for at the end of your article.
“In the long term the only insurance against future anti-Chinese outbreaks is to vaccinate the population: a recalibrated and well-delivered curriculum for our school students; the greater presence of Chinese with demonstrably healthy character and competence in our Parliaments, for directorships on boards of GOCs, for prominent positions on Tribunals, for membership of University Councils, et cetera; and the greater inclusion of intellectually well-primed and socially acculturated Chinese Aussies in public discourse, on television, radio, and in newspapers.”
I believe our younger generations will have a better chance to get there. Thanks for your contribution.
Keep it up mate.
Mr Ling,
I remember writing a comment a couple of weeks ago that when I saw the TV footage of a Chinese girl student being beaten up in a shopping mall, I waited in vain for the government to say something about it. I also remember saying that “these are people’s children!” True to their avaricious nature, the LNP government came out with statements only after the Chinese government desuaded its nationals from choosing Australia as a study destination. And this was not to apologise but to defend Australia as a safe place to buy an education.
Even in this P&I forum which has given minorities like us a voice which we would never have been given in the mainstream media, I find comments calling fair-minded mainstream Australians “sycophantic”, “craven” and “apologists”. The ability to put up with such ugly words and still publish them is a credit to the people who run this blog.
Aristotle advocated the “Golden Mean”; Confucius spoke of the “Middle Road” more than 2000 years ago. Regardless of which side we take, it is moderation that keeps us safe and well.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Birmingham is a shocker not to acknowledge the blatant racist discrimination against Chinese people in this country whether they are Australian citizens or visitors. But then he is a member of the IPA, an organisation that needs thorough investigation given so many of its members get away with also being members of the current government. How can that be? The IPA have previously stated that they would happily see the Australian Human Rights Commission shut down for example in a directive to Abbott when he was elected, and they have led the charge for pseudo ‘freedom of speech nonsense’, mainly so racist and bigoted individuals can get away with saying whatever foul abuse that comes to mind about anyone who is an immigrant in this country or a first Australian.
I was surprised to see that some universities also claimed there was no racism directed at Chinese or generally Asian people in universities. Hard to believe, it has been going on well before Covid-19 even started. White supremacists clearly behind many abusive posters, graffiti, and verbal attacks.
I also note the newspapers say that there is no violence against Chinese in this country (the video shows the contrary), but the fact is that is not just violence. It is verbal abuse that can be equally demeaning to any Asian/Chinese person in this country since some Australians cannot tell the difference.
Australia has a pretty bad history of racism directed at Chinese people, dating back to the gold rush. This demonstrates that is is not just the CCP that is the cause of the current racist trends, but a lingering prejudice that has been around for a very long time.
Thank you Chek Ling for another excellent piece.