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Abstract
This article explores the Australian experience of Lunar New Year, a festival originating in mainland China that has allowed its participants to navigate the identity politics of the private sphere alongside the national politics of the public sphere. For the Chinese-Australian community, it has been a means to reaffirm ancestral traditions and forge new transnational identities. Local councils have further capitalised on celebrations to unify cities under a broader social image of multicultural harmony during Australia’s post-imperial disorientation and subsequent search for a new sense of nationhood. Finally, as Australia continues to navigate a turbulent relationship with China, Australian politicians have adopted the vibrant rhetoric of the festival to ground Australia’s regional identity in the Asia Pacific. The festival thus exists as a lively, contemporary focal point used to hone, reconstruct and complicate a range of Australian identities.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank James Curran for his encouragement and advice. I am also grateful to Sophie Loy-Wilson, Andrew Levidis, and the other authors of this special edition for their comments as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback.
Disclosure statement
The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.
Notes
1 ‘Discover the Lunar Lanterns’, City of Sydney, last modified 23 February 2021, https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/articles/discover-the-lunar-lanterns-at-circular-quay.
2 ‘In pictures: Lunar Lanterns 2021’, City of Sydney, last modified 15 February 2021, https://news.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/photos/in-pictures-lunar-lanterns.
3 City of Sydney, ‘Discover the Lunar Lanterns’.
4 The lunar calendar changes annually in accordance with the phases of the moon. China uses the Western calendar for most official purposes but uses a lunar calendar (sometimes referred to as a lunar–solar calendar) for traditional festivals. See Marie-Luise Latsch, Chinese Traditional Values (Beijing: New World Press, 2016), 11–22.
5 Tran Van Hoa, Lindsay Turner, and Jo Vu, ‘Economic Impact of Chinese Tourism on Australia’, Tourism Economics 24, no. 6 (2018): 678.
6 ‘Australia’s Biggest Parties and Celebrations’, Tourism Australia, https://www.australia.com/en/things-to-do/arts-and-culture/australias-biggest-parties.html, accessed 1 December 2023.
7 Network 10, ‘Lunar New Year: Sydney Is Ringing in the Year of the Rat with the Largest Lunar New Year Celebrations Held Outside of Asia’, 10 News First, 25 January 2020.
8 Kim, Sangkyun, Ana Savinovic, and Steve Brown, ‘Visitors’ Motivations in Attending an Ethnic Minority Cultural Festival: A Case Study of the Feŝta Croatian Food and Wine Festival, South Australia’, Event Management 17, no. 4 (2013): 349; Nanyi Nicole Yu, Judith Mair, Andy Lee, and Faith Ong, ‘Exploring Community Festivals in the Context of the Chinese Diaspora’, Event Management 26 (2022): 932.
9 Tsan-Huang Tsai, ‘From Cantonese Religious Procession to Australian Cultural Heritage: The Changing Chinese Face of Bendigo’s Easter Parade’, Ethnomusicology Forum 25, no. 1 (2016), 103; Chiou-Ling Yeh, Making an American Festival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 15; Marc Howard Ross, Culture and Belonging in Divided Societies: Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 16.
10 Lucille Lok-Sun Ngan and Chan Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia: Multi-Generational Ethnicity Among Australian-born Chinese (New York: Springer New York, 2012), 1–15.
11 The terms ‘China’ and ‘mainland China’ in this article refer to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
12 Wei Liming, Chinese Festivals: Traditions, Customs and Rituals, trans. Yue Liwen and Tao Lang (China: China Intercontinental Press, 2005), 15.
13 Latsch, Chinese Traditional Values, 23–4; Widia Jalal, ‘What Is Lunar New Year and How Is It Celebrated?’, ABC News, 1 February 2022, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-01/lunar-new-year-customs-traditions-celebrations/100795818.
14 Latsch, Chinese Traditional Values, 9, 99–107; Mel Bondfield, ‘Lunar New Year 2021: Celebrating the Year of the Ox’, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, accessed 10 December 2023, https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/history-lunar-and-chinese-new-year-australia.
15 A 2022 survey by Bastion Insights found that 55 per cent of its mainland Chinese participants preferred ‘Chinese New Year’, while 14 per cent thought ‘Chinese Lunar New Year’ was an appropriate middle ground ensuring the primacy of Chinese culture in the context of Australian multiculturalism. See ‘ACBC Vic: New Year Naming Conventions – What the Research Says’, Australia China Business Council, last modified 7 December 2022, https://acbc.com.au/event-gallery/acbc-vic-new-year-naming-conventions-what-the-research-says/; Sofia Geraghty, ‘Bastion: Shift to “Lunar New Year” Creates a Sense of Loss for Australian Chinese’, B&T, 25 January 2023, https://www.bandt.com.au/bastion-shift-to-lunar-new-year-creates-sense-of-loss-for-australian-chinese/; Dong Xing and Peter Theodosiou, ‘“As Long as We’re Recognised”: Chinese Community Reacts to New Year Festival Renaming’, SBS [中文], 20 November 2018, https://www.sbs.com.au/language/chinese/en/article/as-long-as-were-recognised-chinese-community-reacts-to-new-year-festival-renaming/u08ussptl.
16 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 2, 4, 10; Shang Liu, Jessica Maher, and Vivian C. Sheer, ‘Through the Eyes of Older Chinese Immigrants: Identity, Belonging and Home in a Foreign Land’, China Media Research 15, no. 2 (2019): 40.
17 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 7.
18 Ibid., 9, 192.
19 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 9.
20 Ibid., 9, 171.
21 Ibid., 167, 170; Yeh, Making an American Festival, 27.
22 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 192; Carole Tan, ‘“The Tyranny of Appearance”: Chinese-Australian Identities and the Politics of Difference’, Journal of Intercultural Studies 27, no. 1–2 (2006): 66; Jane Elizabeth Southcott and Angela Hao-Chun Lee, ‘Lanterns and Drums: Changing Representations of Chinese Songs in Australian School Music’, Music Education Research 15, no. 3 (2013): 325–6.
23 John Fitzgerald, Big White Lie: Chinese-Australians in White Australia (Sydney: University of NSW Press, 2006), ix–x.
24 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 171, 174; Yu et al., ‘Exploring Community Festivals’, 934.
25 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 181.
26 Latsch, Chinese Traditional Values, 89–95.
27 Ibid., 25–6.
28 Ibid., 35.
29 Ibid., 29.
30 Liming, Chinese Festivals, 22–3.
31 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 123.
32 Haibo Xue, Xin Zhao, Pokachev Nikolay, and Jiayi Qin, ‘Family Identity Construction: An Interpretation of the Lunar New Year’s Eve Dinner Consumption Ritual’, Journal of Contemporary Marketing Science 5, no. 1 (2022): 29.
33 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 168; Liu et al., ‘Through the Eyes of Older Chinese Immigrants’, 40.
34 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 30, 40.
35 Ibid., 31.
36 Ibid., 31–2.
37 Ibid., 34, 36.
38 Jennis Hsu, Wai Yee Yeung, Jason Liu, and Yu Xia, ‘How Chinese-Australians Are Celebrating Yet Another “Abnormal” Lunar New Year’, SBS [中文], 12 February 2021, https://www.sbs.com.au/language/chinese/en/article/how-chinese-australians-are-celebrating-yet-another-abnormal-lunar-new-year/xnnv9cch8.
39 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 30.
40 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 168.
41 Hsu et al., ‘Yet Another “Abnormal” Lunar New Year’.
42 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 42.
43 Ibid., 36, 38; Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 168.
44 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 39.
45 Ibid., 41.
46 Chayut Setboonsarng and Farah Master, ‘For Chinese Lunar New Year Tourists, Retailers Roll Out Rabbit Dances, Red Lanterns’, Reuters, 20 January 2023, https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/chinese-lunar-new-year-tourists-retailers-roll-out-rabbit-dances-red-lanterns-2023-01-20/; Alyshia Gates, ‘Lunar New Year Tourists Expected to Spend Big on Australian Fashion’, SBS News, 10 February 2016, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/lunar-new-year-tourists-expected-to-spend-big-on-australian-fashion/z1c8ebg3s.
47 Thang Ngo, ‘Comment: How Lunar New Year Became a Commercial Event in the West’, SBS News, 8 February 2016, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/comment-how-lunar-new-year-became-a-commercial-event-in-the-west/5sy7i4ixh. The encouragement of corporate sponsorship during Lunar New Year parades further transformed the festival into a mainstream event rather than a private one. See Yeh, Making an American Festival, 156–7.
48 Henry Johnson, ‘Performing Identity, Past and Present: Chinese Cultural Performance, New Year Celebrations, and the Heritage Industry’, in East by South, ed. Charles Ferrall, Paul Millar and Keren Smith (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2005), 235.
49 Bin Ai, ‘Living In-between: A Narrative Inquiry into the Identity Work of a Chinese Student in Australia’, Life Writing 12, no. 3 (2015): 360.
50 Evla Darnell, ‘First Cut: Sydney Welcomes Chinese New Year’, ABC News, 2 February 2009, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-02-02/first-cut-sydney-welcomes-chinese-new-year/280500; City of Sydney, ‘City of Sydney Chinese New Year Twilight Parade’, 5 February 2009, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75VyoUycW7Y.
51 Leigh McKinnon, Loong: Bendigo’s Golden Dragon (Bendigo: Bart ‘n’ Print, 2012), 8–9, 15; Lexie Jeuniewic, ‘Unveiling Ballarat’s “Hidden” Dragon during Lunar New Year as the Oldest of Its Kind in Australia’, ABC News Ballarat, 21 January 2023, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-21/ballarat-processional-dragon-loong-celebrated-lunar-new-year/101858398.
52 McKinnon, Loong, 8–9, 15.
53 Waratah Spring Festival parade, 1966, A-00017712, Sydney Reference Collection (SRC) – Photographs, City of Sydney Archives (CSA), CSA069535.
54 Jeuniewic, ‘Ballarat’s “Hidden” Dragon’.
55 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 51.
56 Tsai, ‘Australian Cultural Heritage’, 91; Loong is the only surviving parade dragon made during China’s Qing Dynasty. Just as it preserves the history of Chinese-Australian settlement in Bendigo, it also serves as an archive of Chinese history. See McKinnon, Loong, 27.
57 Mu Li, ‘From the Ethnic to the Public: The Emergence of Chinese New Year Celebrations in Newfoundland as Vernacular Cultural Heritage’, Western Folklore 77, no. 3/4 (2018): 293.
58 Johnson, ‘Performing Identity’, 234; Ghassan Hage, White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (New York: Routledge, 1998), 118, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203819470.
59 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 159–60.
60 For example, in NSW, Chinese string fireworks can only be used with a valid pyrotechnician’s licence or fireworks single use licence. See NSW Government Safe Work, ‘Operational Conditions for Pyrotechnician’s and Single Use Fireworks Licences’, accessed 12 January 2023, https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/resource-library/licence-and-registrations/operational-conditions-for-pyrotechnicians-and-single-use-fireworks-licences.
61 Tsai, ‘Australian Cultural Heritage’, 104.
62 Alice Pung, ed., Growing Up Asian in Australia (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2008), 250.
63 ‘Historic Dragon Paraded for Last Time; Bendigo’s Chinese Community Has Marked New Year Celebrations with a Parade Featuring the World’s Oldest Imperial Dragon’, ABC Regional News, 30 January 2012, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-30/historic-dragon-paraded-for-last-time/3799560.
64 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 187, 191.
65 Ross, Culture and Belonging, 10–2, 16.
66 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 33–8, 44.
67 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 169, 187, 197.
68 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 122, 132–3, 149; ‘About CYL’, Chinese Youth League of Australia, accessed 29 November 2023, https://www.cyl.org.au/about-us/.
69 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 9.
70 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 39.
71 Paul Longley Arthur, ‘Introduction: Transcultural Studies in Australian Identity’, in Migrant Nation: Australian Culture, Society and Identity, ed. Paul Longley Arthur (Anthem Press, 2018), 3, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1xhr5j8.
72 Henry Reynolds, ‘Racialised Foreign Policy and the Prospects for Indigenous Diplomacy’, Australian Journal of International Affairs (2023): 3, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2023.2273055.
73 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, White Possessive (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 5.
74 Ibid., 16; Anna Clark, ‘Friday Essay: The “Great Australian Silence” 50 Years On’, The Conversation, 3 August 2018, https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-great-australian-silence-50-years-on-100737; Tony Birch, ‘“The Invisible Fire”: Indigenous Sovereignty, History and Responsibility’, in Sovereign Subjects: Indigenous Sovereignty Matters, ed. Aileen Moreton-Robinson (London: Routledge, 2007), 108, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003117353.
75 Irene Watson, ‘Aboriginal Sovereignties: Past, Present and Future (Im)Possibilities’, in Our Patch, ed. Suvendrini Perera (Perth: Network Books, 2007), 24.
76 Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1.
77 Aileen Moreton-Robinson, ‘Introduction’, in Sovereign Subjects: Indigenous Sovereignty Matters, ed. Aileen Moreton-Robinson (London: Routledge, 2007), 4, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003117353; Watson, ‘Aboriginal Sovereignties’, 25, 29.
78 ‘Voice to Parliament’, Reconciliation Australia, accessed 5 December 2023, https://www.reconciliation.org.au/reconciliation/support-a-voice-to-parliament/; Reynolds, ‘Racialised Foreign Policy and the Prospects for Indigenous Diplomacy’, 2.
79 Watson, ‘Aboriginal Sovereignties’, 40.
80 Anthony Burke, Fear of Security: Australia’s Invasion Anxiety (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 72.
81 David Day, The Great Betrayal: Britain, Australia and the Onset of the Pacific War, 1932–42 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992), 9.
82 Allan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World Since 1942 (Collingwood: Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd, 2017), 57.
83 Ibid., 58.
84 Day, The Great Betrayal, 2.
85 James Curran and Stuart Ward, The Unknown Nation: Australia after Empire (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2010), 5, 254.
86 Ibid., 7.
87 Ibid., 5–6.
88 Ibid., 6.
89 Neville Meaney, ‘Britishness and Australian Identity: The Problem of Nationalism in Australian History and Historiography’, Australian Historical Studies 32, no. 116 (2001): 76–7.
90 Curran and Ward, Unknown Nation, 220.
91 Ibid., 200–3, 211.
92 Rayane Tamer and Isabelle Lane, ‘Joy or Pain? Australia’s Not the Only Country with a Controversial National Day’, SBS News, 24 January 2023, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/joy-or-pain-australias-not-the-only-country-with-a-controversial-national-day/m6m7vf1gi. A 2021 Ipsos Australia Day Poll Report concluded that 28 per cent of its subjects supported the campaign to change Australia Day to another date, with 47 per cent of those interviewed making up young people aged 18–24. See ‘Ipsos Australia Day Poll Report’, Ipsos, last modified 25 January 2021, https://www.ipsos.com/en-au/ipsos-australia-day-poll-report.
93 Stephen FitzGerald, Is Australia an Asian Country? (New South Wales: Allen & Unwin, 1997), 55.
94 Curran and Ward, Unknown Nation, 207.
95 Keith Windschuttle, White Australia Policy (Sydney: Macleay Press, 2004), 4; Mark Lopez, The Origins of Multiculturalism in Australian Politics 1945–1975 (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 73–4, 372; Ian Hoskins, Australia & the Pacific (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2021), 343.
96 Wanning Sun, Audrey Yue, John Sinclair, and Jia Gao, ‘Diasporic Chinese Media in Australia: A Post-2008 Overview’, Continuum 25, no. 4 (2011): 517.
97 Lopez, The Origins of Multiculturalism, 83.
98 Timothy Kendall, Ways of Seeing China (Fremantle, Curtin University Books, 2005), 196–201.
99 Kendall, Ways of Seeing China, 196; Lopez, The Origins of Multiculturalism, 3.
100 Meaney, ‘Britishness and Australian Identity’, 89–90.
101 Lopez, The Origins of Multiculturalism, 76.
102 Adrienne Millbank, ‘Asian Immigration’, Current Issues Brief, no. 16 (Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, 1996–97): 4.
103 Ibid., 2–3; Eric M. Andrews, Australia and China: The Ambiguous Relationship (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1985), 242; Kendall, Ways of Seeing China, 199.
104 Hage, White Nation, 179, 210, 212–5.
105 Ibid., 219–25.
106 Ibid., 179–82.
107 Ibid., 210, 212–4.
108 Frank Sartor, ‘Minute by the Lord Mayor: An Appeal to Racial Harmony’, 31 October 1996, in Proceedings of the City of Sydney, 1996 (01/01/1996 – 31/12/1996), 695, CSA, A-00530072, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069487.
109 Frank Sartor, ‘Minute by the Lord Mayor: Chinatown New Year Steering Committee’, 3 April 2000, in Proceedings of the City of Sydney, 2000 (01/01/2000 – 31/12/2000), 200, CSA, A-00530076, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069491.
110 ‘Questions without Notice: Greek Festival’, in Proceedings of the City of Sydney, 2005 – Vol 1 (Jan–Aug) (13/01/2005 – 01/08/2005), 471, CSA, A-00530083, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069499.
111 ‘Questions without Notice: Spanish Festival’, in Proceedings of the City of Sydney, 2007 (01/01/2007 – 31/12/2007), 575–6, CSA, A-00530086, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069502.
112 Clover Moore, ‘Minute by the Lord Mayor: City Christmas, Sydney New Year’s Eve and 2012 Chinese New Year’, in Proceedings of the City of Sydney, 2012 (including Extraordinary Council Meeting) (06/02/2012 – 31/12/2012), 11, CSA, A-00530091, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069508.
113 ‘Children of the Revolution’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December 2003, https://www.smh.com.au/national/children-of-the-revolution-20031226-gdi1qx.html.
114 ‘Grants available to celebrate cultural diversity’, NSW Government, accessed 15 October 2021, https://www.nsw.gov.au/news/grants-available-to-celebrate-cultural-diversity; ‘Celebrate Lunar New Year in Ku-ring-gai’, Ku-ring-gai Council, accessed 14 December 2021, https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/News-and-media/Latest-news/Celebrate-Lunar-New-Year-in-Ku-ring-gai; ‘2021 Ku-ring-gai Lunar New Year’, Ku-ring-gai Council, accessed 7 August 2021, https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Things-to-do/Events-and-festivals/2021-Ku-ring-gai-Lunar-New-Year.
115 Andrew Taylor, ‘Lunar New Year Not Part of “This Country’s Traditions”: Western Sydney Mayor’, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 February 2021, https://www.smh.com.au/national/lunar-new-year-not-part-of-this-country-s-traditions-western-sydney-mayor-20210203-p56z7y.html.
116 ‘Local Council Grants’, NSW Government, last modified 19 July 2023, https://multicultural.nsw.gov.au/stronger-together-major-festival-local-council-grants/; Rebecca Todesco, ‘NSW Govt Partnership Funding 21 Multicultural Festivals’, Council Magazine, 8 November 2022, https://councilmagazine.com.au/nsw-govt-partnership-funding-21-multicultural-festivals/.
117 Frank Sartor, ‘Minute by the Lord Mayor: Strategic Directions 2001–2005: Unlocking Opportunities for the Future’, in Proceedings of the City of Sydney, 2001 (01/01/2001 – 31/12/2001), 336, CSA, A-00530077, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069492.
118 Tsai, ‘Australian Cultural Heritage’, 99.
119 Ed Stokes, ‘Year of the Rabbit’, Canberra Times, 24 January 1987, 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/119477406.
120 Ibid.
121 Johnson, ‘Performing Identity’, 221.
122 Tsai, ‘Australian Cultural Heritage’, 97–9, 104.
123 Yu et al., ‘Exploring Community Festivals’, 939.
124 Tsai, ‘Australian Cultural Heritage’, 89.
125 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 125, 136; Johnson, ‘Performing Identity’, 229.
126 Stokes, ‘Year of the Rabbit’, 1.
127 Samuel Yang, Erwin Renaldi, and Kristian Silva, ‘How Lunar New Year will be Celebrated Across Australia in 2021’, ABC News, 6 February 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-06/lunar-new-year-events-covid-coronavirus-australia-2021/13117844.
128 Natasha Kassam and Jennifer Hsu, ‘Experiences of Discrimination’, in Being Chinese in Australia: Public Opinion in Chinese Communities, Lowy Institute, March 2021, accessed 6 December 2023, https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/chinese-communities/topics/belonging-and-community.
129 Ai, ‘Living In-between’, 359.
130 Fangyin Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations and China’s Policy Choices toward Australia: A Chinese Perspective’, China Review 23, no. 1 (2023): 214–5; David Brophy, China Panic (Victoria: La Trobe University Press, 2021), 109–12; Rory Medcalf, ‘Australia and China: Understanding the Reality Check’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 73, no. 2 (2019): 112.
131 Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations’, 215; Brophy, China Panic, 56; Gill Bates, ‘Explaining the Troubled Australia–China Relationship: A Perspective from Australia’, China Review 23, no. 1 (2023): 262.
132 Hon. Don Farrell and Hon. Murray Watt, ‘China Lifts Suspensions on Three Export Meat Establishments’, Media Release, 12 December 2023, https://www.trademinister.gov.au/minister/don-farrell/media-release/china-lifts-suspensions-three-export-meat-establishments; Kath Sullivan, Stephen Dziedzic, and Jane McNaughton, ‘China Lifts Restrictions on Australian Abattoirs as Trade Tensions Ease’, 12 December 2023, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-12/china-lifts-restrictions-on-australian-abattoirs/103217502.
133 Andrew Chubb, ‘The Securitization of “Chinese Influence” in Australia’, Journal of Contemporary China 32, no. 139 (2023): 33.
134 Bates, ‘Explaining the Troubled Australia–China Relationship: A Perspective from Australia’, 244.
135 Xue et al., ‘Family Identity Construction’, 34.
136 Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 24, 27, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511805363.
137 Jia Gao, ‘Riding on the Waves of Transformation in the Asia-Pacific: Chinese Migration to Australia Since the Late 1980s’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48, no. 4 (2022): 939–44; Chang Sen Yu and Jory Xiong, ‘The Dilemma of Interdependence: Current Features and Trends in Sino-Australian Relations’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 66, no. 5 (2012): 581, 584.
138 Mark Beeson and Jinghan Zeng, ‘Realistic Relations? How the Evolving Bilateral Relationship Is Understood in China and Australia’, Inha Journal of International Studies XXXII, no. 2 (2017): 166–8.
139 Lachlan Strahan, Australia’s China: Changing Perceptions from the 1930s to the 1990s (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 2.
140 Ibid., 127, 134.
141 Yu and Xiong, ‘The Dilemma of Interdependence’, 590.
142 Edmund S.K. Fung and Colin Mackerras, From Fear to Friendship: Australia’s Policies Towards the People’s Republic of China 1966–1982 (St. Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 1985), 8.
143 Beeson and Zeng, ‘Realistic Relations?’, 177–8; Kendall, Ways of Seeing China, 178–9; FitzGerald, Is Australia an Asian Country?, 55.
144 Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations’, 221–2.
145 Kendall, Ways of Seeing China, 19–55.
146 Ibid., 20–1.
147 Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 17–9, 36.
148 Ibid., 35.
149 Ibid., 139.
150 Keith Hooper, ‘About Every Fourth Person Is Chinese’, Canberra Times, 24 January 1982, 10, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/126873921.
151 Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations’, 223, 224.
152 James Curran, ‘“The World Changes”: Australia’s China Policy in the Wake of Empire’, in Australia and China at 40, ed. James Reilly and Jingdong Yuan (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2012), 26.
153 Robert Menzies, ‘Australian Federal Election Speech’, Transcript of speech delivered at Canterbury, Victoria, 29 October 1958, https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1958-robert-menzies; William B. Pritchett, ‘The Future of ANZUS’, in The US and US: The Future of an Alliance, ed. David Anderson (Melbourne: Pacific Security Research Institute (PSRI), 1992), 21.
154 Fung and Mackerras, From Fear to Friendship, 5; Allan Patience, ‘The Two Streams of Australia’s Middle Power Imagining and Their Sources’, Australian Journal of Politics and History 60, no. 3 (2014): 451.
155 Robert Menzies, ‘73 Broadcast Speech by Mr R.G. Menzies, Prime Minister’, Extract from transcript of speech delivered on 26 April 1939, https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/historical-documents/Pages/volume-02/73-broadcast-speech-by-mr-rg-menzies-prime-minister.
156 Eric M. Andrews, ‘Australia and China, 1949: The Failure to Recognise the PRC’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 13, no. 13 (1985): 29–50.
157 Ibid., 31–2.
158 Beeson and Zeng, ‘Realistic Relations?’, 165; Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations’, 218.
159 Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 140–1.
160 Beeson and Zeng, ‘Realistic Relations?’, 165, 166.
161 Chubb, ‘The Securitization of “Chinese Influence” in Australia’, 18; Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations’, 214.
162 Beeson and Zeng, ‘Realistic Relations?’, 174.
163 Zhou, ‘China–Australia Relations’, 218, 221, 227.
164 Ibid., 222–3; Bates, ‘Explaining the Troubled Australia–China Relationship’, 267.
165 Brophy, China Panic, 21; FitzGerald, Is Australia an Asian Country?, 17–25; Jocelyn Chey, ‘From Rosny to the Great Wall: Cultural Relations and Public Diplomacy’, in Re-orienting Australia–China Relations, ed. Nicholas Thomas (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), 178.
166 Randa Abdel-Fattah, ‘Pumpkin Seeds, Angry Minorities and Race: The Moral Contortions of Multiculturalism’, Griffith Review 61 (2018): 86, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.761354596151111.
167 Stephen FitzGerald, ‘Cultural Relationship with China – A Case for the Disproportionate Effort’, 11 May 1976, Despatch no. 3/76, 1; Stephen FitzGerald, ‘Political Relations with China: Are They Too Hard?’, 6 May 1976, Despatch no. 1/76, 6.
168 Chey, ‘From Rosny to the Great Wall’, 167–8, 172, 179.
169 Beeson and Zeng, ‘Realistic Relations?’, 166.
170 Robert Hawke, ‘Parliamentary Dinner for Premier Li Peng’, Transcript of speech delivered at Canberra, 17 November 1988, https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-7435.
171 Julia Gillard, ‘Speech to the Australian Council of Chinese Organisations Dinner in Celebration of Australia Day and Chinese New Year’, Transcript of speech delivered on 22 January 2011, https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-17616.
172 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 33; Southcott and Lee, ‘Lanterns and Drums’, 334.
173 John Howard, ‘Address to the Chinese-Australian Forum Chinese New Year Dinner’, Transcript of speech delivered on 21 February 1997, https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-10249.
174 Mike Steketee, ‘Special Relationship Comes to Grief’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June 1989, 15; Abe Rosenthal, ‘It’s Time to Close the Door on China’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 1989, 12.
175 ‘What’s on’, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1990, 3a; Tsai, ‘Australian Cultural Heritage’, 96.
176 Robyn Willis, ‘Chinese “Horse” Gallops In’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1990, 15.
177 Johnson, ‘Performing Identity’, 234.
178 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 40.
179 Ibid., 51; Strahan, Australia’s China, 152–4.
180 Strahan, Australia’s China, 289.
181 Southcott and Lee, ‘Lanterns and Drums’, 334.
182 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 28.
183 Chris Gibson, Gordon Waitt, Jim Walmsley, and John Connell, ‘Cultural Festivals and Economic Development in Nonmetropolitan Australia’, Journal of Planning Education and Research 29, no. 3 (2009): 290.
184 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 9.
185 Yeh, Making an American Festival, 206.
186 McKinnon, Loong, 40.
187 Liu et al., ‘Through the Eyes of Older Chinese Immigrants’, 47.
188 Ngan and Kwok-bun, The Chinese Face in Australia, 187.
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Cindy Zhu
Cindy (Xinyi) Zhu is a Sydney historian. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (major in History and minor in Latin) and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney. She also graduated with a Bachelor of Advanced Studies (History) from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours.