A few acquaintances of mine decided to give up their Chinese citizenship before last year’s federal election after living on permanent visas for more than a decade.
Their purpose was simple — it meant they could vote.
Many of them, especially those who run small businesses, were long-term supporters of the Liberal Party.
They had strongly engaged with the idea that the Liberal party was more business-oriented than Labor.
But almost all of them voted for the Labor in recent federal and state elections, in New South Wales and Victoria’s by-election.
On the weekend, Labor’s historic win in Aston once again gave an insight into the public opinion from our quiet and marginalised community.
Aston has one of the biggest Chinese-Australian communities in Victoria, with more than 22,500 Chinese residents, or about 14 per cent of the electorate’s population.
It is the first time in a century that a government has won a seat from an opposition at a by-election since 1920.
It came a week after Labor won the state election in NSW, with Premier Chris Minns’s electorate Kogarah witnessing a massive 18.4 per cent swing to the Labor party.
Kogarah has around 29,000 residents with a Chinese background, and it is the location of one of the biggest Chinese-Australian communities in the country.
The top 10 electorates in NSW in terms of Chinese ancestry all saw big swings to Labor.
In many respects, Chinese-Australian voters are no different to other voters across Australia – they are concerned about the cost of living, inflation rates and social mobility.
But one unique issue – Australia-China tensions – has had a significant impact on their voting decisions.
Years of deteriorating Australia-China relations have created fertile ground for a political awakening for many Chinese voters.
And they are using their votes to make an impact on our policies and their future.
Changing views of Australian politics
Chinese-Australian voters are not a homogenous voting bloc, but they have typically been seen as right-leaning on our political spectrum.
And while they do not tell the whole story of recent election results where issues like climate and leadership have been at the fore, there are insights to be gleaned.
“The Chinese-Australian community is quite large. There’s also the Indian-Australian community, which is very important in many electorates and was significant in the last federal election as well,” said Professor Andrew Jakubowicz, an expert in sociology at the University of Technology Sydney.
“But again, the Labor Party can’t take them for granted.”
Many new migrants from mainland China — as well as other multicultural communities — can hold more conservative views in politics, but this is changing with the increase of younger migrants.
Many migrants choose to run small businesses to live a comfortable life in their adopted home of Australia.
For those from China, the strong trade relationship between Australia and China was also an opportunity to support their families.
Previously, they had long considered the Liberals to be more focused on economic development, with minimal concern for some of the domestic issues raised by Labor.
But that all started to change during the past few years when Beijing suspended imports of Australian wine, timber and lobster, among other goods, and issued safety warnings to international students.
Some of these sectors are key to an extremely large number of businesses run by Chinese-Australians, and they were dealt a direct blow due to the trade spat.
They thought they were part of a bridge to build up trading relationships between the two countries, but they became a sacrifice on the altar of geopolitical tensions.
Many were also angered by then-defence minister Peter Dutton’s ominous remarks in relation to China and his assertion that “the only way that you can preserve peace is to prepare for war”.
“There is the element about hostility to China that is perceived to be permeating the Liberal Party. And that’s one element, but doesn’t mean that the Chinese population in Australia is pro-Beijing,” Professor Jakubowicz said.
“It does mean that they feel Chinese in terms of identity, primarily … which has to do with their identification with their homeland, not the homeland government, but their homeland.
“They have felt very distressed, I think, over recent years, and the feeling that they’ve been marginalised, particularly by the conservative parties.”
Apart from disaffection with the Coalition’s handling of the diplomatic dispute, Chinese-Australians have found some reassurance in Labor.
The Aston by-election coincided with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’s visit to China — which has been seen as a confidence boost for some Chinese-Australians who feel that Labor could stabilise relations between the two countries.
It followed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong meeting with their Chinese counterparts last year, ending a three-year freeze on ministerial dialogue.
All of this has prompted Chinese-Australians to rethink their identity – and recast their votes.
Political awakening
In the dramatic decline of bilateral ties, many Chinese-Australians were implicitly asked – who do you support, Australia or China?
Never was this more overt than when three Chinese-Australian citizens were asked by Liberal senator Eric Abetz repeatedly to “unconditionally condemn the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship” during a Senate Committee hearing in 2020.
One of them, academic Yun Jiang, said the Liberal Party had been perceived to be “antagonistic towards China” by many Chinese-Australians.
“There are a lot of Chinese-Australians who are concerned about their own personal safety and then potentially being discriminated against,” Ms Jiang said.
“A lot of them have really lost confidence in how the Liberal government — what that means for the economy if the economic relationship between Australia and China suffers.”
For ordinary Chinese-Australians, the question underscored something our media and politicians have been doing for a long time — oversimplifying our identity.
Many Chinese-Australians migrated here for democracy and freedom, but they are often lumped into binary stereotypes — either brainwashed supporters of the CCP or anti-Beijing activists.
There is no option to be neutral — and no acknowledgement that speaking out publicly could have severe consequences.
They can never cut ties to their homeland — their family, friends, business, and their culture.
No one could ensure their family or businesses in China would not pay the cost for their brave statement.
Chinese-Australians feel stretched.
Their silence may have been perceived as absolute unconditional support for the CCP — an infuriating stereotype in the eyes of many from the community.
But voting in Australia is a silent ballot — and they used their votes to ask for a change.