Amidst all the usual political vaudeville in the lead-up to an Australian federal election, there’s a powerful yet quiet cohort of citizens who are often overlooked: Chinese Australians.
This time around — thanks in part to anti-Asian comments made by New South Wales Labor leader Michael Daley — the group has caught some of the spotlight. This week Bill Shorten has attempted to mend the damage with visits to electorates with large Chinese-Australian populations and a WeChat Live session in which he stressed his party is pro-immigrant and active in fighting racism.
With the federal election looming, Chinese-Australian voters could well play a crucial role in determining which party takes office. So what are voters’ views and concerns, and what tricks do Morrison and Shorten have up their sleeves to get them on side?
What’s in the playbook?
The government has many standard tricks in the playbook. For starters, Morrison could play the funding card — as he did in the Wentworth byelection last year, where he attempted to entice Jewish voters by floating embassy moves and $2.2 million in security funding to Jewish schools and institutions. In Ryde, where the largest racial group is Chinese, local Liberal MP Victor Dominello has already announced a $479 million upgrade for Ryde Hospital.
Justin Li, a former Ryde councillor and the current president of the Australian Asian Association of Bennelong, tells Crikey he expects there’ll be similar promises in the lead-up to the election. Erin Chew, founder of Asian Australian Alliance, agrees: “Any gesture now from the government will be seen as a gesture made to shore up the vote”.
Another prong of the major parties’ strategy is mastering communications mediums. WeChat (the Chinese social media platform, which has a staggering 1.08 billion monthly users number of in China) and other Chinese language media is being used to bolster Chinese Australian support. Currently 1.5 million Chinese Australians are on this digital platform and, although the numbers don’t necessarily indicate the extent of the voter base, it’s a large enough segment to exploit.
Last month, Morrison opened a WeChat account. He wasn’t fast enough, though — Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen was the first Australian politician to use WeChat Live back in October 2017. And in the last month, Bill Shorten has posted twice as many times as Morrison on WeChat — probably trying to reach younger, more tech-occupied Chinese Australians.
It’s not a bad tactic. A study of Chinese Australians from 2018 conducted by Wanning Sun, professor of media communications at the University of Technology Sydney, revealed that while 93% of respondents found WeChat subscription account content from major political politicians irrelevant to their interests, 60% of respondents put WeChat as their No. 1 priority news outlet. More than half of participants also reported that WeChat would be their main source of news and information about the major parties’ policies.
Justin Li believes that reaching out to voters through WeChat is therefore almost mandatory for politicians who want to win over Chinese voters. “WeChat is the Facebook/Twitter equivalent for Chinese Australians who primarily communicate in the Chinese language with their friends and family. Not reaching out this way puts you at a competitive disadvantage.”
When it all comes down to it, however, finely tuned messaging will be the key in tipping over undecided Chinese voters — and it is harder than it looks. With concerns brewing over Chinese influence in Australia, Chinese Australians have been receiving confusing messages; their motherland has been put under suspicion over political donations, spying and foreign interference issues.
Despite ASIO head Duncan Lewis assuring us that Chinese Australians are not targeted specifically with this messaging, Erin Chew believes the racial backlash will impact anyone who looks remotely Chinese — not just those who identify as having a “proud” mainland Chinese background, but the broader diaspora. “We have Chinese descendants who have been in Australia since the mid 1800s, and then the subsequent migrations coming from South East Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and they’re all different,” she said.
What resonates with voters?
So where are Chinese Australians likely to land? The likely answer seems to be the Coalition. Chew believes Morrison may garner a stronger voter base than Shorten due to Chinese Australians’ inherently conservative economic values.
“Chinese traditional values are very conservative, so that is a match in terms of explaining why Chinese Australians tend to be and vote more conservative. They carry on the cultural idea of maintaining self-sufficiency and are therefore economically-centred [and] more economically conservative … To certain sections of the Chinese Australian community ‘control’ is about law and order and stability.”
This is something Morrison will capitalise on.
Not all Chinese Australians will fit this class of voter, however. Justin Li believes that most will be more concerned with day-to-day issues impacting their lives directly: health, education, transport, etc. Chew agrees, saying it’s essentially the same as the rest of the population: “economy, education, jobs, immigration and healthcare”.
Furthermore, specific concerns from Chinese Australians may not actually be heard. Many cultural barriers contribute to feelings of being unseen in this country. Despite Australia’s celebrations of multiculturalism, Chew says the bamboo ceiling is still a major issue; there are very few Asian Australians in positions of authority or leadership, and therefore scarce opportunities to be seen, no public platform to speak out, to possess a public arena or space.
As Chinese-Australian writer Yen-Rong Wong writes in her essay “The very model of a model ethnic minority”:
We are quiet, obedient, complicit. We don’t complain. We keep our heads out of trouble. Working hard, saving well and keeping themselves out of trouble are traits drummed into us by virtue of our upbringing, part of traditional Chinese culture.
These are not the hallmarks of what is required to be effectively heard and represented in politics.
It’s important to take a step back and acknowledge the common factor in all this: the stigmatised perception of being Chinese in Australia. As Andrew Jakubowicz, professor of sociology at UTS, notes: “Many Chinese Australians are angry at being labelled as though they were [People’s Republic of China] agents, and they have no sense of how they can push back politically … It’s not so much that they’re being overlooked, as consciously avoided”.
Between China’s growing global influence and Australia’s crucial trade relationship with the country, it’s clear that Australian politics and political commentary cannot avoid this community any longer.
The Chinese community in Australia needs to be reminded that it was Malcolm Turnbull and the Morrison LNP governments that “launched a counter-interference campaign against Beijing in 2018.” and their inability to go about this campaign quietly meant that every Chinese person (or person of Chinese background) in Australia has been tarred with the brush of being an ‘agent of foreign influence’. The appointment(by Turnbull) of John Garnaut (with his journalism experience in China) to undertake a report into ‘foreign influence’ was ham- fisted and Hastie and Dutton and Porter’s use of the Media to prosecute this ‘campaign’ was appalling and they deserve an electoral backlash
Are we talking about people from mainland China? Or members of minorities from Malaysia and Indonesia? Or Singaporeans? Or Taiwanese? I think it’s a bit simplistic to assume these people form one single community.
‘Irfan’ the average ‘Ocker’ in the street does not have the time (or the ability) to distinguish – ‘they all look the same’ to him
By which standard we all look the same to them.
Would have thought that the dirty tricks run on WeChat by the Coalition aimed at voters in the seat of Chisholm in 2016would have been worth a mention when talking about the major parties’ use of WeChat.
But this issue simply highlights the arrogance and rigidity of our governing class.
Rightist corporate media and Rightist politicians show remarkable disinterest, indeed real hostility, to any form of social inclusion. Despite decades of immigration from a wide range of countries, Australia’s political class stubbornly clings to its bigoted, dogmatic, exploitative, class, Imperial, and self-serving worldview. Hundreds of thousands of visa workers and students are imported and exploited every year, their personal needs ignored, arrested and deported on any pretext, and their culture either ignored or patronised if politically useful.
Their model of social progress is a cave, its workplace relations model that of Dickensian workhouses, its historical model that of Imperial triumphalism at creating devastation and desolation. Anzac Mythology is promoted – enforced to the extent possible – as the only authentic word view permissible to any Australian with Values. But our ruling clique is democratic – it treats Anglo-Celts likewise.
Only in cases like this, where by virtue of their citizenship and their vote minorities such as the Chinese have political influence, will the governing class pretend to pay attention to their interests. As with the rest of us, the commitments it pretends to give will be scrapped once the election is over.
Hi Jessie Tu
Winston Churchill ‘V’ sign right back at ya!!!
Jessie at the risk of offending Mr Xi
I am part of a growing global, silent majority, objecting to the fierce tenacious, imperialistic , colonisation policies which Xi has pursued
We the silent majority include Voters in:
DRC
Nigeria
Brazil
Venezuela
Yemen
Sri Lanka
Auckland
Surat and Galilee Basins Qld
Tasmania
Etc
Etc
Etc
We all object to being bullied , and done over by Xi
Our precious resources are NOT to be subsumed by the questionable policies of China
Australia is NOT China’s QUARRY
if you want to increase the Asian vote legitimately
Start acting DEMOCRATICALLY
Kind regards
Judy Sheehan
Might I suggest Judy that the ‘global, silent majority’ has a glass jaw and does not know much about History
Happy too learn Terry
As would those in the aforementioned CURRENTLY EXPLOITED countries which on further research also expand to include:
PNG &
South Pacific nations also highlighted by Minister Payne who voiced concern over the Chinese ‘STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE’ build up – with Many Strings Attached – ie ‘ threats to bankrupt fragile economies who fail to meet the Chinese Loan Terms.
No one doubts the damage done by previous Imperialistic Nations which in no way excuses China’s relentless commodities, fossil fuel and strategically located ports and infrastructure heists.
But by all means – join the shareholder majority in your blatant ‘Three Monkey Principle’ to anything related to Beijing.
Sheehanjay
Happy too learn Terry
As would those in the aforementioned CURRENTLY EXPLOITED countries which on further research also expand to include:
PNG &
South Pacific nations also highlighted by Minister Payne who voiced concern over the Chinese ‘STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE’ build up – with Many Strings Attached – ie ‘ threats to bankrupt fragile economies who fail to meet the Chinese Loan Terms.
No one doubts the damage done by previous Imperialistic Nations which in no way excuses China’s relentless commodities, fossil fuel and strategically located ports and infrastructure heists.
But by all means – join the shareholder majority in your blatant ‘Three Monkey Principle’ to anything related to Beijing.
Sheehanjay
Judy your ‘Three Monkey Priniciple’ is rather harsh and could be replaced by ‘realistic and common sense’. Your acknowledgement of the damage done by “previous Imperialistic Nations” would seem to me to go a fair way towards excusing China’s current behaviour. For example Judy how do you equate the Israeli occupation of the disputed Golan Heights (which the US has now formally recognised) with China’s occupation of the disputed South China Sea rocks (which the US has not formally recognised)?