Trade, high-tech industry and the services sectors showed resilience in 2023’s post-pandemic recovery. In 2023, China’s goods export volume grew by 0.6 percent compared to the previous year, while goods import volume experienced a 0.3 percent decline, likely reflecting a weaker domestic demand. High-tech manufacturing in areas such as solar cells, service robots and integrated circuits continued to grow steadily. In November alone, their output surged by about 45 percent, 33 percent and 28 percent respectively. Large high-tech manufacturing enterprises saw a 6.2 percent increase in added value relative to the previous November. The strong growth in the high-tech industry can be attributed in part to continuous support from the Chinese government. Beijing has recognised the potential of high-tech firms in driving economic growth and innovation, and this support is expected to continue in the near future.

In 2023, growth in the services sector gained significant momentum, driven by increased consumer and business demand as China removed COVID-related restrictions and reopened provincial and national borders. The services sector grew by 5.8 percent, outperforming the other two pillars of the economy, agricultural (1.3 percent) and industrial production (4.6 percent).

China still faces significant challenges in several areas, including declining property investment (which has a flow-on effect on other industries, such as construction, architecture, real estate services, infrastructure and the financial sector), weak consumption growth and the risk of accumulating debt, all of which pose short-term risks to the Chinese economy.

In 2023, real estate investment declined by 9.6 percent, slightly less precipitous than the decline last year (10 percent) but still considered a deep contraction. Property sales declined by 8.5 percent, which was significantly less severe than the contraction in 2022 (24.3 percent). Throughout the year, the real estate climate index, a monthly economic indicator measuring the overall prosperity of the real estate sector, was stuck in the below-95 region, indicating very low prosperity for the sector.

The contraction in the property market stems from a series of policy crackdowns that started in late 2020, notably the ‘Three Red Lines’ policy designed to mitigate the danger to the economy from developers’ mounting debt. Beijing has since repeatedly emphasised that housing is for living in, not for speculation, reaffirming its determination to control the housing market. Despite a continuing decline in residential investment, the real estate sector showed signs of recovery in 2023, thanks to more positive government policies. For example, in January, the government announced a 21-point action plan aimed to improve the balance sheets of high-quality property developers. It has a strong focus on easing financial pressures of what they considered ‘high-quality’ developers. An important part of the plan is to ensure the completion and deliveries of houses from developers to buyers within the contracted timeframe (保交楼). The plan sets up special bonds and loans to support the said completion and deliveries. Another part of the plan is to relax the borrowing constraints set out by the ‘Three Red Lines’ policy and provide debt extensions to good-quality developers. Thirty pilot real estate developers will be the first to implement those new policies.

Beijing also introduced eased mortgage rules and relaxed requirements for first-home buyers to boost buyer confidence. The government even stepped in to tackle imminent collapses of property developer firms of systemic importance. The most prominent example is that the government dealt with the near bankruptcy of Evergrande, one of China’s largest real estate developers. Beijing’s heavy intervention in terms of debt restructuring and negotiation with global stakeholders ensured that Evergrande did not experience a full collapse, which might have caused a chain reaction that dragged down the real estate sector or even the banking sector more broadly.

The golden days of rapid property market expansion might be over. The era of high-leverage, high-debt and rapid market expansion created risks too huge to be ignored. The recent contraction caused pain and losses to many real estate firms, but was part of the process of establishing a sustainable, albeit much smaller, market with better-quality property developers and closer government oversight.

Local government debt poses another potential catalyst for a debt crisis in China. Beijing’s deep concern over the scale and sustainability of local government debt led to a reform of the local financial regulatory framework announced in March 2023. The Chinese government has also initiated a gradual restructuring of local government debt, including rolling over existing debts, extending loan terms at lower interest rates, and issuing special-purpose bonds to fund large infrastructure projects. Local government debt restructuring is a complex issue. It must strike a balance between preventing large-scale crises and establishing sustainable paths for local government budgets.

China has been grappling with the challenge of slow and uneven household consumption recovery in the post-pandemic period. Despite increases in total retail sales and services, the consumption of durable goods and big-ticket items remained sluggish in 2023. Chinese households appeared hesitant to spend. The National Bureau of Statistics Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) has remained below 100 since April 2022, suggesting a pessimistic sentiment among consumers. While the CCI trickled up to 94.9 in March 2023, it subsequently slid down to below 90 and remained there to the end of the year.

The share of household consumption in China’s GDP has been historically lower than in other countries of similar economic development levels, standing at 56 percent, compared to 66 percent in India and 67 percent in Thailand. The average consumption-to-GDP ratio in most advanced economies is around 80 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the situation because of its impact on household balance sheets. The Chinese government has implemented a series of fiscal and monetary policies, but these primarily affected businesses rather than households. Partly that was due to China’s inadequate social security network, which prevented the government from directly extending support and relief to households. The sluggish recovery of household consumption is therefore primarily a structural issue than a cyclical one. Long-term structural reforms in social security, income redistribution and the household registration system are needed to address this issue.

In 2023, China’s China Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew only by 0.2 percent, and the Chinese Producer Price Index (PPI) declined 15 months in a row. The prospect of very low inflation with an elevated debt poses more challenges to Beijing in stimulating the economy to restore it to its pre-pandemic growth level (the consensus on China’s growth potential is 5–6 percent). Beijing has highlighted the critical role of internal circulation in promoting economic growth in the post-pandemic era as part of the Dual Circulation strategy first introduced in May 2020 by President Xi Jinping. The goal of the Dual Circulation strategy is to foster a complementary and synergistic relationship between the domestic market (internal circulation) while maintaining openness to the global economy (external circulation) and integration with it.

On 11–12 December 2023, at the annual Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing, China’s leaders outlined the country’s economic priorities for 2024. Echoing with the former leader Deng Xiaoping’s famous slogan, ‘Development is the hard truth’ 发展是硬道理, this year’s conference prioritised ‘Maintaining High-quality Development as the New era’s “Hard Truth”’ 必须把坚持高质量发展作为新时代的硬道理, reiterating the party’s belief in the absolute importance of growth and development – but also high-quality growth that is sustainable, innovation-driven and consumption-led.

Since 2021, the central government has repeatedly emphasised the triple pressures of demand contraction, supply shock and weakened expectations that the Chinese economy faced. These pressures stemmed from various sources including the disruptions caused by its draconian lockdown policies around COVID-19, an unfavourable external economic environment, and rising geopolitical tensions. The 2023 Central Economic Work Conference reiterated those challenges and identified real estate, local government debt, and small and medium financial institutions (such as small and medium-sized banks, rural and community banks, and urban cooperative banks that serve regional or underserved segments of the population and are therefore more prone to economic shocks), as key areas of risk and advocated a coordinated national-level approach to resolving these problems.

Regarding the real estate sector, the conference proposed to establish a new development model for property developers, likely by 2024. As for local government debts, Beijing called upon major provinces to make their contributions to the overall debt restructuring effort. In addition, the conference reaffirmed the priorities of anchoring expectations and promoting growth and employment through active, likely stimulative, fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy. Notably, it placed anchoring expectations ahead of promoting growth and employment in the official statement, which has been interpreted as that Beijing’s growing concern over weakened household and business confidence had surpassed its concern over slowing growth and promoting employment. Accordingly, one could expect to see more policies that are targeted to support household consumption and income, and reforms aimed at addressing inadequacies in the social security networks and household registration system, although the reforms will likely be gradual and incremental.

Looking ahead, the Chinese economy is experiencing increasingly difficult challenges. Faced with the challenge of a volatile external environment, the central government has identified the domestic market as the key driver of growth. The million-dollar question is how to build the demand and supply network to ensure a circular flow in the domestic economy. China’s structural challenges, including broadening the reach of its social security system, making its household registration system flexible enough to allow a rational flow of labour between localities, the ageing population and rising labour costs, cannot be swiftly resolved. The three-year COVID-19 lockdowns and controls protected the most populous nation from an unimaginable public health disaster with economic consequences but disrupted China’s long-run growth trajectory. Technology and innovation, including in the digital economy, delivery services and the tech-intensive green trio of solar batteries, lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles, hold the potential to drive growth. Navigating the challenges to achieve the party’s stated goal of becoming a moderately developed economy within a decade will require political resolve.

The post China’s Macroeconomy in 2023 appeared first on The China Story.

Late last year, Penny Wong delivered a speech, stating that whenever the federal government is in trouble, you see them ‘desperately playing politics on China’. A volatile Question Time where Defence Minister Peter Dutton made unprecedented and unsubstantiated claims that the Chinese Communist Party had decided to back Labor in the upcoming election appeared to substantiate her warning.

In response to widespread outrage, including from former Coalition Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Minister Dutton doubled down, alleging a foreign interference plot by China involving New South Wales Labor. This referred to a revelation by Mike Burgess, Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), about such a plot in his Annual Threat Assessment, released the previous day. But Burgess did not specify the country attempting foreign interference, the party it targeted, or the jurisdiction.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese pushed back against what he described as ‘nonsense’, stating that ASIO had not raised any concerns to him about Labor’s candidates. New South Wales Labor also stated it was the first time that it had heard these allegations and raised questions about the politically convenient timing of Dutton’s claims, an allusion to a by-election in the New South Wales marginal state seat of Strathfield where a prominent Chinese Australian candidate, Jason Yat-Sen Li, was running for Labor. In his victory speech, Mr Li spoke about how race had been ‘used as a partisan political weapon for short-term gain but with devastating long-term consequences’ and it was unacceptable that ‘the patriotism of candidates or the Labor Party is questioned with no basis in fact.’ These long-term consequences include dissuading Chinese Australians from fully participating in our democracy as engaged citizens and corroding attempts to build a resilient and inclusive political culture.

Minister Dutton’s actions appear to be part of a pattern of behaviour among Coalition politicians that has been amplified by the press. Since the beginning of the year, there have been several attempts by the Coalition to portray Labor as ‘soft’ on China. Only a week ago, the Prime Minister tried to raise doubts about Labor’s ability to guarantee national security, claiming that Mr Albanese would ‘appease’ China, an assertion he repeated in Question Time. It followed similar unfounded assertions made by Coalition MPs that Mr Albanese would not have the courage to resist the economic pressure that the Chinese government has been applying to Australian trade and investment since early 2020, despite a clear statement from Labor that it would not change the approach taken on foreign interference, human rights or the South China Sea. The economic pressure followed the Australian government’s call for an independent investigation into COVID-19’s origins, which angered Beijing. Coalition MPs also attempted to pressure Labor to join a boycott of WeChat when it was revealed on 23 January 2022 that the Prime Minister had lost control of his account – although Home Affairs officials have since ruled out the Coalition’s claims that the account had been hacked or subjected to foreign interference.

In weaponising the issue, the Coalition MPs have been ingenuously ignoring the fact that foreign interference is a genuine risk from which neither major political party in Australia is immune. Ironically, the Director-General of ASIO in the Annual Threat Assessment made this very point, stating that ‘attempts at political interference are not confined to one side of politics.’

While Minister Dutton repeatedly pointed the finger at NSW Labor, he himself had previously been caught out having a one-on-one lunch meeting with billionaire Huang Xiangmo, who had paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, and who wanted the help of Dutton, then Immigration Minister, in securing his citizenship. Huang was later stripped of his permanent residency and barred from entering Australia on national security grounds.

Among allegations of foreign interference involving the Liberal Party, the apparent links between the Communist Party of China’s United Front Work Department and organisations with which Liberal MP Gladys Liu was closely associated have received the most attention. The first case ever brought under Australia’s foreign interference laws, which were adopted in 2018, is currently before the courts; the defendant, businessman Sunny Duong, was an active Liberal Party member and a former candidate for Victorian state parliament. Earlier, there had been rumours of a foreign interference plot to install the now-deceased Nick Zhao as a Liberal candidate, confirmed by Liberal MP Andrew Hastie in late 2019. There have also been media reports about ASIO’s concerns about a high-profile Liberal Party donor linked to Victorian Liberal Ministers.

Tough talk on China may be red meat for the conservative base. Such tactics, however, may backfire electorally. While a January Newspoll had dealing with the threat of China in the Asia-Pacific as the only issue where the Prime Minister had a notable lead over the Opposition Leader (31 percent – 26 percent), only 10 percent of voters said it was the most important issue for them, the least important out of the five issues polled.

Instead, overreach on this issue may result in Chinese Australian voters deserting the Liberal Party. The recent Canadian federal election, where the Conservative Party campaigned heavily on China, resulted in a big swing against the Conservatives in seats with a high proportion of Chinese Canadians, resulting in the loss of seats.

There are already reports of Chinese Australians shifting away from the Liberals. Chinese Australians voters had been reliably Liberal leaning for the past few elections, with a 2020 Lowy Institute poll finding that those of Chinese heritage were far less likely to identify with Labor than the average Australian. Nearly a fifth of the population of the marginal federal electorates of Chisholm and Reid have Chinese ancestry. A turn to Labor by them could deprive the Coalition of a majority in the House of Representatives. There are also other federal Liberal electorates such as Banks, Bennelong, North Sydney and Kooyong where a swing to Labor or independents among the more than one in ten residents who have Chinese ancestry could put the seats into play.

There is a much larger, more important, and longer-term danger from the tactics. If the government is understood to be weaponising national security intelligence about foreign interference for domestic political gain, like the boy who cried wolf, it will have a hard time getting people to trust in such claims in the future, when national security may actually be at stake. Voters may suspect any given allegation has been driven by political motives. The opaqueness of the allegations, based on leaks from anonymous sources, including those to which the government may imply it has special access, already make it difficult for journalists or opposition politicians, much less citizens, to verify details. Dueling assertions as to who is behind the recent foreign inference plot, with some anonymous sources telling the ABC that it is Russia, and others pointing the finger at China, have created more questions about the political intent behind the leaks.

This pattern of behaviour only shrinks the space for the kind of constructive, bipartisan co-operation needed to protect our sovereignty from greyzone activities by malicious foreign actors and misleads our international partners about the existing domestic consensus. That is not only highly detrimental to Australia’s national interest, but it is an unfortunate departure from a long tradition of bipartisanship on matters of national security.

The post Australian Politics and the China Card: a Dangerous Game appeared first on The China Story.

The year 2020 was one that many Chinese Australians will not forget, and not just because of COVID. A combination of widespread incidents of racism against Asian Australians, deteriorating relations between Australia and China, and public loyalty tests for Chinese Australians from elected federal representatives has created an unsettling environment for many in 2021 and beyond. It is therefore not surprising that the Scanlon Foundation decided to focus on the experience of people of Chinese heritage this year in its annual Mapping Social Cohesion report.

Survey results

In 2020, the Scanlon Foundation national survey was administered twice with 3,090 respondents in July and 2,793 in November. The data was weighted to ensure a sample that was representative of the Australian population.

In addition to the main survey, 500 individuals were surveyed on WeChat in simplified Mandarin between May and June 2020. The results from the WeChat survey paint a picture of growing apprehension and discrimination:

• 27 per cent indicated they experienced discrimination because of their appearance, ethnicity or national origin over the last 12 months. A further 20 per cent declined to answer the question, suggesting underreporting.
• 41 per cent indicated experiencing ‘much more’ or ‘more’ racism during the COVID pandemic.
• 39 per cent agreed with the statement that ‘I feel conscious / nervous in public, particularly when I’m alone’.

The main survey results showed that concerns about racism are not a figment of their imagination. Shockingly, 44 per cent of Australians surveyed in November 2020 reported having had negative feelings towards immigrants from China. Unfortunately, no comparable data has been previously collected, making longitudinal analysis difficult.

There was also a divergence in experience and concern about discrimination between Australians born in Asia and those born elsewhere. The main survey results in November found 55 per cent of those born in an Asian country were of the view that racism was a very big or fairly big problem, compared with 37 per cent of those born in Australia and 35 per cent born in the United Kingdom and Ireland. A similar divide emerged over concern about COVID-related discrimination in July with 55 per cent of those Australians born in Asia concerned compared to 30 per cent of those born in Australia and 19 per cent of those born in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

These findings were a stark contrast to the rest of the report that indicated no deterioration in the sense of belonging and continuing optimism about the future. The report indicates a level of cognitive dissonance, with Australians appearing to be strongly supportive of multiculturalism (84 per cent in November 2020) and migration from many different countries (74 per cent in November 2020), while almost half had negative attitudes towards immigrants from specific countries, including Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, and China.

What can we do?

These results should prompt reflection on wider public perceptions about individuals with Chinese cultural backgrounds. Despite repeated statements by politicians, academics and commentators that we need to distinguish between individuals of Chinese heritage and China, it appears that the wider public is not doing so. If Australians are struggling to make distinctions between China, migrants from China and Chinese Australians, that has significant implications for how we conduct debates.

Repeated caveats may have little to no effect. We must be extremely mindful of how what is said might be interpreted by a general public that is not deeply engaged in the China debate and the possible consequences for Chinese Australians.

Rhetoric about COVID and the fractious debates about our relationship with China have already contributed to these negative sentiments towards Chinese migrants.

Further research is needed to ascertain the mechanisms through which negative perceptions of Australian Chinese are developing, so that we can better understand its impact, and how to redress it. Past polling indicates a third of Australians associated the transmission of COVID with Chinese communities. We also had prominent commentators such as Peter Hartcher previously recommending reducing our migration intake from mainland China. News reports about suspicion towards Chinese Australians in the public service suggest aversion is not a problem restricted to a socio-economically disadvantaged, less-educated cohort of the population; instead, it seems to extend through many facets of Australian society.

This is a challenging problem that requires urgent attention. It should not silence discussion about Australia’s relationship with China or the nature and actions of the Chinese Communist Party. Nor does it diminish the fact that Australia has done relatively well as a multicultural country and is a broadly tolerant society compared to many other Western nations.

But we must bear in mind that how we talk about China has unintended consequences on the everyday lives of more than 1.3 million Australians with Chinese heritage, and many more of East Asian heritage. Avoiding such issues or claiming they are only propaganda talking points does us no favours. On the contrary, they make it harder to have many necessary yet difficult conversations. Further, it creates an impression that the experiences of individuals only matters if they advance geopolitical interests. This is corrosive to the multicultural society we value that is a key pillar of a democratic Australia.

Image: Chen Hualin, Wikimedia Commons.

The post Negative feelings towards Chinese immigrants show our debates do not happen in a vacuum appeared first on The China Story.

COVID-19 Racism Incident Survey

In response to anecdotal reports of racism, an online survey was launched by myself and the Asian Australian Alliance in April asking a range of quantitative and qualitative questions about Asian-Australian experiences of racism during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Individuals were asked to describe the incidents of racism they experienced. 

The survey made no pretence that it was an academic study. The nonprobability sampling approach aimed to provide a snapshot of anti-Asian racism and fill the gap of poor data collection, an issue mentioned by the current Race Discrimination Commissioner. 

The survey has provided insights into the likely scale of incidents and how widespread they might be. To date, the survey has received over 400 reported incidents from across Australia. This is a larger number of reports per capita than the equivalent Stop AAPI Hate aggregator established by Asian-American groups in the United States.

A preliminary report was released on July 24 that analysed data from the first two months of the survey. A few key trends were evident from that period:

• Women were primarily the targets (65 per cent).
• New South Wales had the most incidents (37 per cent), followed by Victoria (32 per cent).
• Incidents tended to occur in public spaces such as on a street (40 per cent) or at the shops (22 per cent), with perpetrators being random strangers (84 per cent).
• Almost 60 per cent of incidents involved physical or verbal harassment such as slurs, physical intimidation, verbal threats or getting spat at.
• Online incidents were predominantly on Facebook (43 per cent).
• Common themes in slurs were references to eating habits, being a carrier of disease, going back to “their” country and also mentioning the Chinese Communist Party or China.

The problem of underreporting

There was underreporting with 90 per cent saying they did not report the incident to the police. While the survey did not ask why people are not reporting these incidents, there are a few possible explanations including a lack of knowledge of reporting processes, a belief that it is too much hassle or not serious enough to report, that racism just happens in Australia, or a distrust of authorities.

One of the problems caused by the lack of reporting is that racism may not be perceived to be much of a problem in Australia, because it does not appear in government statistics. This may result in less focus and less resources being provided to combat racism, creating a vicious cycle.

There have been responses by federal and state governments and agencies to the work we have done publicising these incidents. Government responses have been targeted at awareness raising about processes, creating multilingual resources, but less so at addressing the other potential reasons for underreporting.

Australia’s responsiveness will show the strength of democratic systems

Any discussion of racism can become fraught as the issue has become heated and “weaponised” with claims made by the Chinese government that Australia is unsafe due to racist incidents, and the Australian Government pushing back against these claims. 

Based on the survey results and the limited available public information, it is reasonable to assume there has been an increased number of incidents of anti-Asian racism since the beginning of the pandemic. This has been a global trend and Australia is no exception. It is not mutually exclusive with Australia remaining a relatively safe travel destination for tourists and international students from China.

Undoubtedly, the issue of anti-Asian racism is being used for political purposes by China. However, hamfisted denials that racism is a problem are counterproductive. It leads to dissonance between the public position of the federal government and the lived experience of Chinese and Asian Australians. It creates a perception that the federal government does not care about growing anti-Asian racism when it is not politically convenient. The risk is it only further encourages China to use claims about anti-Asian racism in Australia as a tactic of wedge politics.

It is wrong to believe that a discussion of anti-Asian racism in Australia reinforces claims made by the China or diminishes the seriousness of human rights abuses and discrimination within China. Rather, such discussions should be seen as key to showing that as a multicultural nation with liberal democratic values, these concerns are treated seriously and acted upon. In doing so, the federal government would provide a sharp contrast to the governments of other countries that are not pluralistic, liberal democracies. Governments that can demonstrate strong anti-racist credentials can more confidently dismiss exaggerated claims of racism used for geopolitical purposes.

Recommendations

Based on the findings, the report made a number of recommendations. Some of these have been advocated for in the past including a national anti-racism strategy and combating disinformation spread via social media. Other recommendations include:

1. Collecting nationally-consistent data on incidents of racism.
2. Simplifying the process of reporting incidents and providing multilingual avenues to do so.
3. Removing legislative barriers to prosecution for racially-motivated criminal actions and strengthening anti-vilification laws.
4. Making greater investments (or increasing investments) in multicultural and community liaison work.
5. Promoting human rights literacy amongst temporary residents including international students.
6. Involving community groups in developing strategies against racial discrimination.

The post COVID-19 has led to widespread incidents of anti-Asian racism in Australia appeared first on The China Story.

COVID-19 and racism in Australia

The global COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in reports of growing racism towards individuals of Chinese and East Asian descent around the world. Australia has not been exempt from this trend with numerous reports of racist abuse in public spaces, refusals to be treated by medical staff of “Asian” appearance, and even violent attacks.

More recently, with panic buying in supermarkets, misinformation has spread via conservative talkback radio and social media, including through fake accounts, that:

• Bus loads of “Asians” have emptied regional supermarkets of groceries to sell them overseas;
• Chinese-Australians have been ordered to obtain medical supplies by the Chinese government; and
• A business in Melbourne was hoarding food to send to China (a claim shared on Facebook over 95,000 times).

Previous media stories on the organised dàigòu (代购) – the purchasing of goods such as baby formula to sell to consumers in China – have added to the public’s propensity to believe in these rumours.

The centre-right Commonwealth Government has responded to these rumours by announcing it would take action to restrict the purchasing of goods such as face masks, hand sanitiser and medicines to be re-sold or exported in bulk with a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment.

While there is evidence that companies with China-based owners were organising donations of medical supplies to China in January and February, contrary to claims of secrecy, these activities were publicised at the time. Unfortunately, it has become conflated with general shortages in supermarkets that are due to supply chain distribution issues.

Recent reportage has only fed into existing racialised anxieties towards any individuals of Chinese or East Asian appearance doing grocery shopping. Recent polling shows three-quarters of Australians believe supermarkets are being emptied by “outsiders” and that hoarding to onsell is occurring.

Parallels with 19th century anti-Chinese sentiment

The common themes in racism related to COVID-19 are not new. Parallel narratives about disease and competition for resources were prominent in 19th century anti-Chinese campaigns. For example, comments about the eating and hygiene habits of Chinese people mirror 19th century anti-Chinese rhetoric focused on the ‘strange ways’ identified with the Chinese, citing them as the source of various diseases, and representing them as unclean, sick, contagious ‘aliens’.

These narratives were by no means unique to Australia – they were also common in the United States during the 19th century. But unlike the United States, anti-Chinese rhetoric was formative to the concept of Australian identity. John Fitzgerald’s Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia noted a clash of cultures was emphasised to justify exclusion, with the construction of a Chinese “Other” against stereotypical Australian values such as equality, mateship and the fair go. He explained the caricature was that the Chinese were hierarchical and servile, prioritising profit over friendship, and preferring ‘Oriental’ despotism to Australian democracy.

Australia’s problem with casual racism

While Australian political leaders have spoken out against racism, some commentators have retorted that “It’s fear not racism”. This highlights a continuation of casual racism, that is, conduct involving negative stereotypes or prejudices about people on the basis of race, colour or ethnicity. To these commentators, racism stems from the actions of “bad” individuals with malice or hatred, rather than being caused by a combination of prejudice and institutional power. This misunderstanding makes racism harder to combat. Former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane has noted this problem, suggesting that calling out racism is often seen to be worse than the act itself.

The Chinese diaspora in Australia

By global standards, Australia has a large China diaspora, at 5.6% of its total population. Proportionally, Australia’s Chinese diaspora is amongst the largest in the Western world. The sizeable and growing minority of Australians of Chinese descent, as well as other Asian-Australians who are often mistaken for being Chinese, are becoming collateral damage during this pandemic, reflecting the historical caricature and casual racism of many (white) Australians.

Given concerns that the Chinese government has sought to position itself as a global protector of the Chinese diaspora, and to seek its loyalty, the Australian government should not downplay worries about growing discrimination and suspicion towards Chinese-Australian communities. Instead, this problem should be taken seriously.

Policy recommendations

The recommendations below aim to mitigate against the COVID-19 related racism and xenophobia we are currently seeing in Australia.

1. The Commonwealth Government should fund a national anti-racism campaign and education program to improve community understanding about what is racism and discrimination.
2. The Australian Press Council, working with the Australian Human Rights Commission, should develop advisory guidelines for reporting on China and Chinese-Australian communities to assist newsrooms and media professionals understand what might be considered Sinophobic, and the reasons why.
3. Social media platforms should be required to make it easier to report and remove trending content confirmed as false that may encourage COVID-19 related racism. Individuals who share removed content should be directly informed by platforms that the content was verified as false.
4. Online reporting tools should be used by civil society groups to track instances of racism and discrimination against Chinese-Australians (and indeed all ethnic minority groups), provide support to victims, track trends, develop resources and inform advocacy.

The post COVID-19 racism echoes historical anti-Chinese sentiment appeared first on The China Story.