Celebrating the migrant mosaic

Graham Lloyd’s series on the ethnic Chinese in Australia is a compelling reminder that there is rarely such a thing as a monolithic migrant community. It’s true that the number of Chinese-born people living here began to increase rapidly not long before China under President Xi Jinping took on more chauvinistic and authoritarian features. But the Chinese presence in Australia has a long history and it is to be hoped that today’s troubles with Beijing prove to be a passing irritant and that mutual benefit will return as the bedrock of bilateral relations.

Discovery of gold in the 1850s first attracted a sizeable number of Chinese with an adventurous spirit. After World War II the source of many ethnic Chinese arrivals was Southeast Asia. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square repression of 1989, the inflow of mainlanders, many with high levels of education, began to give the “Chinese Australian” demographic the considerable heft it has today. For most of this recent period, China was a good news story: a rewarding partner in trade and the key market for a lucrative inbound education industry.

Now our economy suffers with pandemic, we are caught in a power struggle between China and the US, and some Chinese Australians are understandably anxious. There’s no doubt anti-Chinese racism is a strand in our history (think of the Lambing Flat Riots of 1861 and Federation’s White Australia policy), but multi-ethnic Australia has become a remarkably open and welcoming place. The history of the ethnic Chinese diaspora here is one of considerable success and achievement, and the wish to bring in family members remains strong.

When racist incidents do occur, of course they require a decisive response. But exaggerating racism is recklessly counter-productive. Chinese authorities have tried to play the racism card to discourage international students, to punish Australia economically and to distract attention from their attempts to exert political influence within our sovereign borders. This goes back several years, at least as far back as 2008 when Beijing organised students to frustrate pro-Tibet protests during the Olympic torch relay in Canberra. More recently, attempts to control Chinese community organisations and to interfere in our party politics have been well documented. There is evidence of several ethnic Chinese — not all Australian citizens — enabling this strategy. Some appear unabashed partisans of the Chinese Communist Party, others convince themselves that alignment with Beijing’s interests in truth serves Australia’s future.

Those outside the Chinese diaspora should remember the pressures that apply. Attachment to China as a mother country (as opposed to the regime) does not make anyone less Australian. But there is a darker side. The party leadership has updated its authoritarianism with surveillance technology and is willing to punish mainland families for the dissent of relatives abroad. Mr Xi’s chauvinism implies that all ethnic Chinese, regardless of birthplace or legal nationality, owe a higher duty to the party as the custodian of Chineseness. Given the risks they face, the significant number of Chinese Australians who defy Beijing and stand up for democracy and human rights are all the more heroic. Their courage and connections are vital for Australia to maintain its independent policy.

They are living proof that the CCP does not own Chinese people, their culture or their ancient civilisation. And some of today’s clearest, most urgent expressions of liberalism — ideas fostered in the West but with broad appeal — have come from democracy activists in Hong Kong. China certainly has its own authoritarian traditions but, for many Chinese, Leninist totalitarianism is an import destructive of Chinese values. Hence the astonishment when the party that requires family members to inform on each other attempted to co-opt Confucianism.

But beyond any tribal politics, it’s vital to keep in mind that as a pluralistic society, Australia gives both the locally born and recent arrivals the freedom to develop as individuals with views and opinions beyond the supposed party line of any imagined subculture.