By Anonymous –
Just like any relationship, China’s relationship with Australia has always been a curious one. The push and pull dynamics of their economic and security relationship has stumped many International Relations scholars (including my tutors) and it comes to the grand question of: ‘Who should Australia pick?’ Throughout my whole entire university course, I have been trying to answer this question myself, and alas have come to the single conclusion.
Of course, there are benefits for Australia if they choose to have a more comfortable relationship with China. Victoria recently signed up to the massive infrastructural project ‘One Belt One Road’, making it the only Australian state to participate. Premier Daniel Andrews said: ‘It means more trade and more Victorian jobs and an even stronger relationship with China.’ It is no secret that the Northern Territory is also trying to woo Chinese investment and increase tourism, with hints it will follow Victoria and join the 1B1R project.
On the flip side, alleged accusations of Chinese military scientists collaborating with Australia universities, surveillance and censuring of Chinese international students at university, Huawei being banned from obtaining Australia’s 5G network contract and the plethora of alleged foreign interference into our political process have all contributed to this atmospheric tension that the Chinese are watching us.
And while politicians continually debate and safeguard Australia from Chinese influence, they have neglected one important voice in all this chaos: Chinese-Australians.
I am part of that voice. In 2016, the Australia Bureau of Statistics found that Australia is home to 1.2 million people of Chinese ancestry. Of those 1.2 million, 41% of them were born in China and while I am not part of that percentage, I am part of the 25% that was born here.
It wasn’t until I was older that I really started to question my identity as an Chinese-Australian. These terms aren’t necessarily dichotomous, it was easier for people to understand when I told them I was Chinese-Australian than to say I was just Australian. Growing up in the shadow of the ‘Rise of China’, the media had often painted China as a negative influence or the enemy. The book Silent Invasion also did not help but stoke the flames of Sinophobia and questioned the loyalty of Chinese-Australians.
The Chinese community in Australia is a large and diverse one, descendants from the Gold Rush in the 1800s all the way until newly arrived immigrants. Our communities have had a large role and made an impact in the Australian communities despite having faced discrimination and racism. We are underrepresented and disconnected from the political landscape.
The lack of representation or consultation with the Chinese-Australian community pushes us aside and leaves us to the mercy of easy stereotypes and xenophobic tropes. In face of rising doubt against Chinese-Australians and Sinophobia, it has never been more important to raise our voices for recognition.
We are not all the same.
My perspective of my identity was predicated on the fact that the media, politicians and political scholars painted us with one single brush, effectively lumping us all together. The panic, hysteria and sensationalist comments that creep into mainstream media do not help anyone but perpetrate fears about our communities.
There was a need to distance myself away from ‘them.’ I did not want to be associated with an oppressive regime that had no respect for human rights, rule of law and cultural and ethnic identities. It is no secret that Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) methods on retaining control through media suppression and censorship and arbitrary rule of law is what makes them so powerful. And this extends beyond the borders of China.
WeChat, a popular instant messaging app similar to Whatsapp, is monitored by the CCP even if you download the app outside of China. Alleged surveillance on Chinese international students through university societies to keep tabs on whether they remained loyal to the country, who is to say this will not extend to people like me.
Yu ZhengSheng, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, said that, ‘all the sons and daughters of [ethnic Chinese] to work together for the greater national interests and the realisation of the Chinese Dream’ in reference to President Xi’s nationalist rhetoric of China being a global power.
While the CCP continues to spit out political rhetoric to somewhat galvanise a global Chinese movement, they are actively oppressing their own population under increasingly tighter restrictions on freedoms. Dissidents and critics of the Chinese government and just normal people like you and I, no matter whom or where they are, just mysteriously disappear and reappear in China. In March 2018, a naturalised Swedish citizen, Gui MinHai, had disappeared from this Thai holiday home and had reappeared in China along with a videotaped confession that he had turned himself in because of a hit and run accident. Gui owns a bookstore in Hong Kong which sells highly critical and gossip articles about the CCP and is currently under house arrest in Ningbo.
A Chinese girl posted a video of her splashing ink on President Xi’s face protesting against his dictatorship, and has since disappeared. No news of her whereabouts or situation undoubtedly covered up by the CCP. The CCP is also trialling a new system of ‘social credit’ in which diligent and loyal citizens is rewarded and low rated citizens can be denied loans, plane tickets and houses. With presidential term limits lifted in early this year, the scope of President Xi’s power is endless and boundless with no accountability. The influence of the CCP goes right down to the heart of individualism and has been slowly remaking it from inside out.
China is a beautiful country, with magnificent architecture and delicious food, hospitable people and a rich history intertwined into its culture. As I grew older, I realised the importance of maintaining your cultural identity and the importance on passing on traditions. However, I cannot help but think about my family in China and the conditions they are living under. I want to love my ancestral home, but I can’t. My beautiful homeland is marred by the war the CCP has declared on its people.
I want to help them. The well-founded fear that I would be kept away from my family in China or even worse, being kidnapped or killed is a possibility that I have considered. And honestly, it’s not worth the risk.
The Australian Government needs to reach out to these communities, engage with them and understand their journeys and stories. Not every story is the same. We need a platform to express ourselves and how we fit into the Australian narrative. Social media has played a large role in giving the younger generation a platform in which we can share stories amongst each other. The stories of our elders should be told and passed down to generations, to remind the sacrifices that they had to endure to give us a better life.
I cherish my freedoms here, and I am so grateful that my parents have worked hard and made a life for me here because they could not have one in China. I take for granted that I was born into a democracy whereas my parents did not, I have freedoms that my parents did not have but they still call themselves Chinese.
This is only a small fraction of my struggle of coming to terms with my identity. Perhaps this struggle is universal and inter-generational, and that we all have our unique journeys and stories to share. How we all fit into this narrative of Australia. But for now, I am simply someone in between two worlds searching for a voice.
