In the first half of the twentieth century, a diverse community of Australians settled in Shanghai. There they forged a ‘China trade’, circulating goods, people and ideas across the South China Sea, from Shanghai and Hong Kong to Sydney and Melbourne. This trade has been largely forgotten in contemporary Australia, where future economic ties trump historical memory when it comes to popular perceptions of China. After the First World War, Australians turned to Chinese treaty ports, fleeing poverty and unemployment, while others sought to ‘save’ China through missionary work and socialist ideas. Chinese Australians, disillusioned by Australian racism under the White Australia Policy, arrived to participate in Chinese nation building and ended up forging business empires which survive to this day. This book follows the life trajectories of these Australians, providing a means by which we can address one of the pervading tensions of race, empire and nation in the twentieth century: the relationship between working-class aspirations for social mobility and the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of white settler societies.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a diverse community of Australians settled in Shanghai. There they forged a ‘China trade’, circulating goods, people and ideas across the South China Sea, from Shanghai and Hong Kong to Sydney and Melbourne. This trade has been largely forgotten in contemporary Australia, where future economic ties trump historical memory when it comes to popular perceptions of China. After the First World War, Australians turned to Chinese treaty ports, fleeing poverty and unemployment, while others sought to ‘save’ China through missionary work and socialist ideas. Chinese Australians, disillusioned by Australian racism under the White Australia Policy, arrived to participate in Chinese nation building and ended up forging business empires which survive to this day. This book follows the life trajectories of these Australians, providing a means by which we can address one of the pervading tensions of race, empire and nation in the twentieth century: the relationship between working-class aspirations for social mobility and the exclusionary and discriminatory practices of white settler societies.

South Flows the Pearl is a fascinating journey through the history of Chinese Australia. Taking the reader from Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta to Sydney, Perth, Cairns, Darwin, Bendigo and beyond, it explores the struggles and successes of Chinese people in Australia since the 1850s, as told in their own words. This unique book was written by an insider. Mavis Yen was born in Perth in 1916, the daughter of a Chinese father and an Australian mother. She lived in both countries and understood what it meant to navigate two worlds, to live through war and revolution, and to experience racial discrimination. In the 1980s she began interviewing elderly Chinese Australians, recording hours of conversations. Her intimate understanding of their languages and life experiences encouraged them to share their stories. Published here for the first time, they will change how you think about Australian history. “This is a book that offers a new way to be Australian in this country, and casts Chinese Australians as the protagonists in their own stories... When people agree to tell their stories, they speak to the future. Whether or not we listen is up to us.” — Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson, University of Sydney

In Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance key scholars explore how Chinese Australians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries influenced the communities in which they lived on a civic or individual level. With a focus on the motivations and aspirations of their subjects, the authors draw on biography, world history, case law, newspapers and immigration case files to investigate the political worlds of Chinese Australians. The book also introduces current literature and thinking about the history of the Chinese in Australia and includes a postscript that reflects on the importance of historical analysis to current day political science.

Much has been written about the White Australia Policy, but very little has been written about it from a Chinese perspective. Big White Lie shifts our understanding of the White Australia Policy - and indeed White Australia - by exploring what Chinese Australians were saying and doing at a time when they were officially excluded.Big White Lie pays close attention to Chinese migration patterns, debates, social organisations, and their business and religious lives. It shows that they had every right to be counted as Australians, even in White Australia. The book's focus on Chinese Australians provides a refreshing new perspective on the important role the Chinese have played in Australia's past at a time when China's likely role in Australia's future is more compelling than ever.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd famously said that China issues are part of 21st century Australia’s ‘very life-blood’. This brings short-term challenges to the Australia-China relationship, from Chinese investments in our resources to visits to Australia by expatriate regional political and religious leaders, labelled ‘splittists’ or ‘terrorists’ by the Chinese government. Our long-term relationship includes robust scholarship on China as an emerging superpower. In this book, leading Australian academics comment on the arts, law, politics and society in China today. The book opens with Geremie Barmé’s essay on re-orienting Beijing city for the Olympics and closes with restaurateur Kylie Kwong’s reminiscences—and recipes—from a Chinese childhood in Sydney’s suburbs. Readers will disover a rich engagement with China in the twelve chapters of this volume, ranging from Confucianism to ‘green’ Australian-Chinese cuisine.

In 2008 Clive Hamilton was at Parliament House in Canberra when the Beijing Olympic torch relay passed through. He watched in bewilderment as a small pro-Tibet protest was overrun by thousands of angry Chinese students. Where did they come from? Why were they so aggressive? And what gave them the right to shut down others exercising their democratic right to protest? The authorities did nothing about it, and what he saw stayed with him. In 2016 it was revealed that wealthy Chinese businessmen linked to the Chinese Communist Party had become the largest donors to both major political parties. Hamilton realised something big was happening, and decided to investigate the Chinese government’s influence in Australia. What he found shocked him. From politics to culture, real estate to agriculture, universities to unions, and even in our primary schools, he uncovered compelling evidence of the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of Australia. Sophisticated influence operations target Australia’s elites, and parts of the large Chinese-Australian diaspora have been mobilised to buy access to politicians, limit academic freedom, intimidate critics, collect information for Chinese intelligence agencies, and protest in the streets against Australian government policy. It’s no exaggeration to say the Chinese Communist Party and Australian democracy are on a collision course. The CCP is determined to win, while Australia looks the other way. Thoroughly researched and powerfully argued, Silent Invasionis a sobering examination of the mounting threats to democratic freedoms Australians have for too long taken for granted. Yes, China is important to our economic prosperity; but, Hamilton asks, how much is our sovereignty as a nation worth? ‘Anyone keen to understand how China draws other countries into its sphere of influence should start with Silent Invasion. This is an important book for the future of Australia. But tug on the threads of China’s influence networks in Australia and its global network of influence operations starts to unravel.’ –Professor John Fitzgerald, author of Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia