The Chinese in Australia (CHSA Lecture)

Archaeological evidence suggests that Chinese traders may have reached the coast of northern Australia before European colonization. There were also limited schemes to recruit Chinese agricultural labor during the early days of colonial rule, the first recorded shipment of which was 120 from Amoy to New South Wales in 1848. However, only about 3,000 arrived before the discovery of gold in New South Wales and Victoria in 1851 sparked a substantial influx of Chinese argonauts, mostly from the Pearl River Delta to the gold fields. The Chinese became a significant and very visible section of the populations of the goldfields, increasing rapidly by 1861 to 38,000 or 3 percent of Australia’s total population. Twenty five thousand of these were in Victoria, representing 4.6 per cent of that colony’s population. Next in number was 13,000 in New South Wales, representing 3.6 per cent of the population. Australia, particularly Melbourne, became known as the New Gold Mountains to the Chinese.

Chinese soon became the targets of violent attacks arid the object of discriminatory legislation similar to that experienced by the Chinese in North America. As early as 1855 and 1861, both Victoria and New South Wales passed legislation to restrict Chinese immigration. With the decline of the gold fields many Chinese returned to China and the population decreased. However, others remained to be agricultural laborers and, in some cases, operating rural stores. Earlier fears of Chinese competition for gold were transferred to workers’ fears of cheap Chinese labor. Thus when the Australian colonies formed the Federation of Australia in 1901, the Immigration Restriction Act which provided the legislative base for the White Australia Policy, was one of the first legislation passed by the new Commonwealth Parliament, even though by that time the Chinese population had declined to 30,000 or less than 1 per cent of the total population.

Like Chinese in America, the Chinese immigrants came from the Pearl River Delta and many transferred their cultural traditions to their new home. Even while they were settling in Australia, they retained an active interest in China. The monarchists, the revolutionaries, and the Chee Kung Tong all had organizations in major Chinese communities and also established newspaper organs in Sydney and Melbourne by the early twentieth century.

Chinese living in the Federation could be categorized into two groups. The larger consisted of single men working in a variety of rural and urban economic activities, such as pastoral and agricultural laborers, domestics, hawkers and the like. Through market gardening, which became the occupation of about a third of the Chinese at the turn of the century, they dominated the supply of fresh vegetables. They also were prominent as cabinet and furniture makers in many towns and cities in NSW and Victoria, comprising about 1,300 or almost one tenth of the Chinese working population in these areas. Far smaller was the group of successful Chinese professionals and businessmen, some of whom established international business connections. Australian Chinese capital was important in the founding of the three major Chinese department stores—Sincere (1900 by Ma Ying-piu), Wing On (1907 by Philip Gockchin), and The Sun (1912 by Choy Hing)—in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. Like the Chinese in America, Australian Chinese also founded and operated the China Australia Mail Steamship Company in 1917-1924.

The businessmen and professionals also mixed in nonChinese business and social circles and established families in Australia. One of the most prominent was merchant Moy Quong Tart, known to Australians as Quong Tart, from Taishan. Moy became an Australian citizen and married a European woman. He was active in both Chinese and white societies and became a leader and spokesman as well as de facto consul general for the Chinese in Sydney. His funeral in 1903 was attended by more than 2,000 Chinese and whites.

Some of the small population of Australian-born also played important roles in early Chinese and Australia history. For example, Melbourne’s William Ah Ket, the first Chinese lawyer in Australia, was one of the delegates of the Chinese in Australia sent to meetings in China immediately after the founding of the Republic. In 1913 and 1917 he also became acting consul general for China. Ah Ket was also active in fighting racism against Chinese in Australia. Like Moy Quong Tart and many other early Chinese, Ah Ket married a European woman.

As early as 1901, almost 10 percent of the Chinese in Australia were part-Chinese and by the 1940s, almost a quarter. In the early twentieth century, these part-Chinese, who could function effectively in Chinese and European societies, also often played prominent roles in Australian society. For instance, Thomas Jerome Kingston Bakhup was elected to the Tasmanian Parliament in 1909-12 and then to the national parliament in 1913, 1917, and 1922. He was active in upholding Chinese rights in Australia. Another was William Liu of mixed Chinese-English ancestry. Liu became CEO of the China Australia Mail Steamship Company. He was a staunch supporter of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and a member of the Kuomintang. He was also prominent in the struggle for equal rights for the Chinese in Australia and was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1982.

However, the Chinese population continued to decline during the first half of the twentieth century as the older immigrants died and restrictions reined in immigration. By 1947, the Chinese population was just over 12,000. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a gradual easing of the White Australia Policy, but by 1971, the Chinese population was only 26,000, up 6,000 from 1961.

The election of a Labor government in 1972 was followed by the final abandonment of the White Australia Policy and the introduction of a nonracial discriminatory immigration and naturalization policy. Various Australian government policy decisions and complex international developments led to the diversification of the contemporary Chinese population, which was some 450,000 in 1996. Out this total approximately one fifth was born in Australia, 15 percent in China, 13 percent in Hong Kong and Macao, almost a quarter from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, and slightly less than one fifth from IndoChina.

Residential patterns

Chinese are highly concentrated in the cities. New South Wales and its capital, Sydney, Australia’s largest city and its financial centre, attract over 40 per cent of all recent immigrants.

As is illustrated by Sydney, the largest center of Chinese settlement, Chinese, like the rest of the Australian population, have moved into the suburbs. Chinatowns are not major residential centers, even though they have expanded with the increase in Chinese numbers. Residential “ghettoes” are not a feature of Australian cities, and even in Ashfield, the Sydney municipality with the highest concentration of Chinese speakers, Chinese are only 10.2 per cent of the population. Elsewhere, the percentage of Chinese in the suburban areas is much less.

In other large cities, similar patterns of residential concentration distinguish the wealthier middle-class Hong Kong, Taiwanm, and Southeast Asian Chinese from those who have come as refugees or as recent arrivals from the PRC.

Expansion of Chinatowns

Accompanying the rapid growth of the Chinese population has been the revitalization and restructuring of community institutions and organizations. One highly visible sign of these changes has been the growth of existing and new Chinatowns. On top of being the foci for commercial, community and welfare services catering to the Chinese population, Chinatowns, such as the older ones in the capital cities and Cabramatta in Sydney, have been promoted by local governments and business organizations as Chinese “cultural precincts” to attract tourists and nonChinese visitors. The preference for the low and mediumdensity suburban housing typical of Australian cities means that few Chinese actually live in the downtown Chinatowns. The main exception is Sydney, and to a lesser extent Melbourne, where nonresident Chinese are among those purchasing new, luxury, highrise downtown apartments for use on their visits to Australia or for investment. Given the large middleclass component in the Chinese population, many of the new “Chinatowns” are now located within existing middleclass shopping centers in suburbs such as Chatswood (Sydney), Box Hill (Melbourne), and Sunnybank (Brisbane).

Community Organizations

Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora: A research centre committed to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Chinese-ness in SE Asia and the SW Pacific. Secretariat located at Australian National University, Canberra.

Workshop on the Chinese in Australia and New Zealand History: Similar in scope to periodic conferences sponsored by the Chinese historical societies in America. A list has been established on the University of NSW Majordomo server to enable the distribution of information on the history and heritage of the Chinese in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island, news about upcoming events such as conferences and seminars, and to encourage discussion and debate on issues related to the heritage and history of the overseas Chinese in the South Pacific. The administrator of ANZ-CH LIST is Henry Chan and the moderators of the list are Henry Chan and Kate Bagnall. The list is open in that any one may subscribe to it, and restricted in that only subscribers may post messages to it. Both the biennial conferences of the Australian Historical Association and the Asian Studies Association of Australia will be held in Brisbane in July 2002. This could be the occasion for another get-together of researchers on the history of the Chinese in Australasia.

The Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Conference: Sponsored by La Trobe University, Museum of Chinese Australian History of Melbourne, and East China Normal University of Shanghai. Held at the Museum of Chinese Australian History July 1 and 2, 2000. After the conference ended, there was an initial meeting of the Melbourne Branch of the Chinese Family and Qiaoxiang History Group. The group will hold a conference in Sydney in August 2001.

Museum of Chinese Australian History: Idea suggested in 1984. State government provided $240,000 to purchase 3-storied building in Melbourne’s Chinatown. Opening ceremony in 1985.

Australian Chinese Community Association of NSW: Founded 1974. Served immigrants, seniors, women, youth with lunches, recreation, and classes. Somewhat similar to Chinatown Planning Council in NYC.

Chinese Garden of Friendship: Chinese Garden in Sydney near Darling Harbour designed by the Guangdong Landscape Bureau and completed in 1988.

Nan Tien Temple: Part of Fo Guang Shan headquartered in Taiwan. Opened in 1996?

Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo: Gold discovered at site in 1851. Called Dai Gum Saan by Chinese. In 1869 Bendigo citizens organized the first Easter fair and procession to raise money for charity. In 1871 the Chinese community was invited and since then Chinese have been part of the procession. A Chinese dragon, loong, joined the procession in 1892 and it became an annual fixture. The highpoint of loong came in May 1901, when it was taken to Melbourne to welcome the Duke of York. A 100 meter long Sun Loong, which claimed to be the longest in the world, was introduced in 1970. In 1991 the Victoria State government, Bendigo City Council, and Bendigo Chinese Association cooperated to construct the Golden Dragon Museum. In 1997 it became an accredited museum.

Him Mark Lai

November 15, 2000