Celebrating Lunar New Year in modern Australia

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.

Keywords:

• Lunar New Year
• Chinese-Australian identity
• Australian identity
• multiculturalism
• Sino-Australian relations

Introduction

A bang and a crash jolt through Chinatown. The lion dancers have arrived. It’s a hot summer’s day and the alleyway banners on Sydney’s Dixon Street are splashed with a brilliant, bright red. Two lions mesmerise the crowd forming around them with shimmering coats of gold, silver, white and red. The drums beat on as the lions dance and play, their huge eyes blinking to scare the children. Meanwhile, the humid air hangs heavy with the smell of something sticky and sweet – dim sum or maybe sea bass glazed with sweet and sour sauce. Another cymbal clash, and the lions are pushing through the crowd now. Piercing summer sun beats down on dusty, red brick walls that echo the last of the band as the troupe meanders away to bring fortune elsewhere. As the sun sets, 12 luminescent statues come to life around Sydney Harbour, Haymarket and the Central Business District.¹ Two red oxen playfully beckon with gesturing arms into Chinatown while a pair of Australian Merino sheep, crafted as an homage to traditional Chinese paper cutting, stand nestled behind Town Hall station.² Beyond that lies a tiger, resting on Circular Quay’s grassy patches and setting the corporate skyline ablaze with an orange glow.³ The remaining nine zodiac animals are scattered across the city – lanterns that softly light the way from Chinatown to the icons of Australia: the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

It’s Lunar New Year.

During festivities, the cityscape transforms, marrying Chinese culture with an Australian landscape for two weeks in January or February.⁴ Having brought in an estimated $42 million for the Australian economy in 2020, the festival has generated significant foot traffic through cities like Sydney.⁵ Tourism Australia even lists Lunar New Year as part of Australia’s ‘Biggest Parties and Celebrations’,⁶ with Sydney’s Lunar festivities ‘usually attract[ing] up to 1.5 million visitors, making it the largest event of its kind outside of Asia’.⁷ Yet, more than its touristic value and economic revenue, cultural festivals are vibrant expressions of human activity, not only marked with intimacy for the individual and their sense of communal belonging, but also providing unique insight into the broader sociocultural landscape.⁸ It is in these spaces that private and public sentiments collide, birthing novel perspectives to colour past, present and future.

In the Australian context, Lunar New Year has provided a safe space through which Australia and its peoples have experienced, negotiated and explored their individual and collective identities. First, the practice of festival rituals by Chinese-Australian communities has reinforced ancestral connections while also forming new hybrid identities and transnational networks.⁹ In this way, the Chinese diaspora in Australia have asserted and been empowered by their ‘Chineseness’.¹⁰ Furthermore, as the case studies of Bendigo and Sydney show, the incorporation of Lunar New Year into community civic calendars has organised narratives of social identity in the wider public, reinforcing an emerging multicultural image in the wake of Australia’s transition from an imperial past. Finally, the invocation of the festival by political leaders has invited public reflection on a multicultural Australia specifically rooted in the Asia Pacific, generating more positive ways to characterise both historical and contemporary discourse in the context of Australian diplomacy with China.¹¹ In sum, Lunar New Year has reserved a liminal space for individuals, communities, politicians and the media to traverse simultaneously, prompting generative reflection on both private and public identities.

Lunar rituals and diasporic identities

Lunar New Year celebrates a new year of the lunar calendar.¹² Also known as the Spring Festival, it is the most widely celebrated festival in mainland China, spanning across a two-week national holiday period brimming with festivities.¹³ However, Lunar New Year is not a uniquely Chinese festival, despite it being popularly known as one. Several other East Asian cultures also recognise and celebrate it in accordance with their own customs. These include, but are not limited to, minority groups in China, as well as South Korean, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian and Vietnamese communities.¹⁴ Moreover, the terminology shift from ‘Chinese New Year’ to ‘Lunar New Year’ has only taken effect publicly in Australia from around 2018, with some media outlets and Chinese communities preferring ‘Chinese Lunar New Year’.¹⁵ While this article adopts the term ‘Lunar New Year’ to acknowledge the diversity of its celebrants, it explores the festival’s interaction specifically with Chinese-Australian communities and its influence on Sino-Australian discourse.

Indeed, even the identification of ‘Chinese-Australian’ may not adequately acknowledge the complex identities and vastly different life experiences of the Chinese diaspora. Migrants may have come from mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan, resided in different periods of Australian history and settled in different locations.¹⁶ While there is no single identity construction that can encompass such varied experiences of ‘Chineseness’,¹⁷ the labels of ‘Chineseness’ or ‘Chinese-Australian’ are nonetheless practical tools used to ‘interpret, construct and reconstruct’ personal identities.¹⁸ The invocation or evocation of such terminology in different contexts remains a political act used by the communities themselves, the wider public and policymakers.¹⁹ References to the term ‘Chinese-Australians’ in this article capture all Australians who ethnically identify as Chinese, regardless of birth or duration of residency in Australia. It is interested in how cohorts of Chinese migrant communities have grafted and grounded their sense of self but likewise, how a broader Australian community has incorporated them into the national narrative.²⁰ Historically, there has been an assumption that migrant identities must be ‘given up’ to become Australian.²¹ Under the policies of assimilation or integration, for example, Australian and Chinese identities were assumed to be separate and mutually exclusive.²² However, as John Fitzgerald put it in his examination of Chinese-Australians in ‘White Australia’, it was ‘possible to be both Chinese and Australian [even] before the advent of multicultural Australia’.²³ Lunar New Year, and the specific performance of its rituals, was one avenue that enabled Chinese-Australians to challenge this assimilationist assumption and assert the hybridity of their identity, acting as a ‘focal point’ for the diaspora to balance both notions of home.²⁴

Lunar New Year first establishes a sense of ‘Chineseness’ by articulating ‘circuits of memories, travels and histories with the homeland, China’.²⁵ Celebrations include traditional rituals and superstitions that vary geographically across provinces, temporally across the days of the festival and even from family to family.²⁶ Some include: the repayment of all debts before the new year,²⁷ the gifting of red pockets to children,²⁸ eating traditionally significant foods²⁹ and lighting string firecrackers.³⁰ While these customs each hold separate sentiment, generally, Lunar New Year is centred around the importance of family and home.³¹ In 2019, an estimated one-fourth of mainland China’s population travelled during the festival period to either visit overseas relatives or return home.³² This evocation of ‘home’ is particularly important in the formation of identity, evoking physical, social and otherwise, personal dimensions.³³ In their study of consumption rituals during Lunar New Year, Haibo Xue, Xin Zhao, Pokachev Nikolay and Jiayi Qin concluded that the ritual acts themselves, such as the family dinner on New Year’s Eve, epitomise ‘home’ for its participants who use them to construct a sense of family identity.³⁴ These identities in turn help celebrants experience their ethnic history and ancestral inheritance.³⁵ Just as Christmas and Valentine’s Day encourage ritual behaviours to emphasise social identities and confirm kinship, so too do the traditions of Lunar New Year provide an opportunity to affirm individual and collective identity.³⁶

Importantly, the family unit is not fixed and is capable of being redefined, thereby reconstructing an individual’s sense of clan identity in the process. In the context of Chinese diaspora who may work, study or live overseas as second- or third-generation migrants, ‘satellite families’ are commonplace.³⁷ Moreover, during the height of travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, many Chinese-Australians celebrated locally or through technological platforms like WeChat.³⁸ Where travel and reunion are not possible, family composition can vary such that non-Chinese friends, restaurants and even pets might evoke a sense of ‘home’.³⁹ Diasporic notions of home therefore do not rely on territorial boundaries, but instead blur ethnic origin, cultural heritage and local residence. Traditional food items may vary from province to province with southern regions of China favouring steamed glutinous rice pudding and northern regions preferring homemade dumplings.⁴⁰ Dr Lennon Yao-Chung Chang recently spoke of how he prepared traditional ‘shouxing chicken in wine’ for his new year dinner in Australia, but also took advantage of local ingredients like ‘lobster, cherries and red wine’,⁴¹ infusing ancestral rituals with local flavour.⁴² Accordingly, ‘home’ can be multiple, contested and unfixed to a physical location, instead being evoked and experienced when engaging in Lunar rituals.⁴³

Another important consumption ritual during Lunar New Year is shopping for new clothes, accessories, household decorations and local delicacies. This consumer enthusiasm reflects the hope that the new year will be filled with new attitudes, better opportunities and a chance to start afresh.⁴⁴ Participating in such a ritual not only engages directly with the construction of cultural identity but also, by actively consuming products in the public sphere, asserts presence in broader society.⁴⁵ Retailers have increasingly mass-manufactured products coloured in the festival’s lucky red and gold hues.⁴⁶ KitKat has launched Lunar-themed chocolate bars, Qantas offers special flight deals, and cosmetic brands like Lancôme have advertised specific Lunar billboard campaigns.⁴⁷ While such commercialisation may be perceived as the bastardisation of ethnic identities for consumer purposes,⁴⁸ corporate Australia’s Lunar marketing spike can nonetheless still play an important role in maintaining cultural ritual. As a Chinese student living in Australia between 2010 and 2013, Bin Ai recounts in her diary entries that she did ‘not care about the cost’ when buying food to celebrate the festival with other students.⁴⁹ By responding to consumer demands and further encouraging expenditure, Lunar shopping strengthens the emotional experience and agency of an individual publicly practising an intimate ritual that may remind them of home.

Lunar New Year parades, or elements of it, are another public means of asserting a hybrid Chinese-Australian identity. Sydney’s ‘Twilight Parade’, for example, has been a recurring feature of the city’s Lunar New Year festivities since 2009, where traditional Chinese dance troupes, marching bands and speciality performers parade through the streets in cultural attire alongside zodiac lantern floats.⁵⁰ Additionally, in Victoria, Bendigo currently houses the oldest processional dragon used for Lunar New Year celebrations in Australia.⁵¹ This dragon, known as ‘Loong’, is – interestingly – most known for its performance in the city’s Easter Fair procession from as early as 1892.⁵² In Sydney, the Waratah Spring Festival also featured a Chinese dragon puppet from 1966,⁵³ and Ballarat, too, houses a dragon only three years younger than Loong.⁵⁴ Although Bendigo’s Easter procession and Sydney’s Waratah Spring Festival were not Lunar celebrations in themselves, dragon puppet processionals are a common feature of festivities.⁵⁵ The experience of performing and participating in these parades is therefore still relevant to our understanding of how elements of Lunar New Year, though piecemeal, may nonetheless articulate a uniquely Chinese-Australian culture in a public space. These dragons all guard a treasure more valuable than gold, protecting a precious archive where spectators and participants alike experience, embody and perform Chinese-Australian history.⁵⁶

On the other hand, Margaret Chan’s examination of Chinese festivals in Toronto, Canada, questioned the ostentatious nature of such parade presentations, labelling it ‘festival tourism’ or ‘ethnic tourism’ where performers become ‘live props’ or ‘objects of display’.⁵⁷ Passers-by could easily visit Chinese culture but walk away without bearing the racialised consequences.⁵⁸ Furthermore, the parades were neat and organised events that are first regulated, licensed or approved by some council authority.⁵⁹ For example, igniting Chinese firecrackers on Lunar New Year requires a licence in all Australian states and territories.⁶⁰ Yet, despite this so-called artificial element, participating in parades nevertheless evoked sentimental responses from the celebrants, who could revel in their ‘Chineseness’ with absolute authority in front of other communities.⁶¹ Alice Pung, in her book Growing Up Asian in Australia, recounts parading alongside the ‘imperial dragon’ as it danced through the crowd in Bendigo’s Easter procession. She writes of how ‘glorious [it was] to march before the cheering city, to smile and wave like royalty, to dance and be applauded by classmates – all for being Chinese’.⁶² Eugene Law from Bendigo’s Golden Dragon Museum remarked in 2012, when Loong was due for its last Lunar parade, that his ‘heart still hasn’t stopped beating’.⁶³ Lunar rituals consequently allow us to traverse the emotional terrain of Chinese-Australian communities building a sense of belonging.

Thus, while the complex nature of the hybrid Chinese-Australian identity may invite racial contestation and a loss of true belonging in either Australian society or the Chinese diaspora, Lunar New Year has encouraged and emboldened communities to assert their cross-cultural experience in a positive way.⁶⁴ Rituals like New Year’s Eve dinners, shopping and parades have welded collective cultural memory to present-day experiences, creating a new warehouse of memories.⁶⁵ Though such elements may vary in an overseas setting, the core themes of home and family remain the same, such that individuals can reaffirm cultural heritage but simultaneously foster novel identities imbued with fresh social networks in distinctive local surroundings.⁶⁶ Consequently, participating in Lunar New Year festivities – to the extent they can in Australian landscapes – empowers Chinese-Australians to negotiate, claim, and make sense of diasporic identities while sharing ‘Chineseness’ with broader society and future generations.⁶⁷ Moreover, though outside the capacity of this article, there is scope to explore further how community groups, like the Chinese Youth League of Australia, might have fought for cultural authority through public participation in Lunar New Year, especially during times of limited funding or to control the ethnic narrative in the public eye.⁶⁸

Social identities and multicultural narratives

In the same way that Lunar New Year is a cultural site and ritual process by which ‘Chineseness’ is explored and reconstructed among Chinese-Australians,⁶⁹ the festival has created an opportunity for cities like Sydney to draft a multicultural sense of self. In China, for instance, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, a television variety show hosted annually with musical and dramatic performances, has increasingly become a ritual activity for many families to watch on Lunar New Year’s Eve. However, the program also narrates a grander message of prosperity, national development and broader social harmony across China. In this way, individual or family identity organically combines with the construction of social identity at a national level.⁷⁰ Though events in Australia may not possess the same comprehensive level of national coverage as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala does, the framework of analysis is useful in considering the potential of Lunar New Year to influence social values within the public sphere.

To better understand the significance of navigating sociocultural identity in Australia, we must contextualise the past and present foundations of the nation’s sense of self, which has stood upon shifting grounds.⁷¹ Beginning with First Nations history, the continuing efforts to incorporate Indigenous Australian history and sovereignty have fundamentally contributed to the insecurity about belonging that plagues Australia to this day.⁷² The colonisation of Australia by the British Empire dispossessed Indigenous land, children and culture while securing a national identity tied to ‘social worth, authority and ownership’.⁷³ The legal doctrine of terra nullius coupled with a subsequent historia nullius, where there exists a selective historical record favourable to settler colonial narratives with inadequate recognition of Indigenous oral histories and Dreaming accounts, still reverberates in the national consciousness.⁷⁴ Accompanying this historical battle is also a legal one for sovereignty.⁷⁵ Aileen Moreton-Robinson and Irene Watson have both argued that despite the apparent judicial and political progress in High Court decisions like Mabo v Queensland (No 2),⁷⁶ Indigenous sovereignty has largely remained unrecognised.⁷⁷ Especially in the wake of the 2023 Voice referendum, First Nations sovereignty continues to be publicly perceived as an unconstitutional and socially uncomfortable displacement of White Australian history and sense of self.⁷⁸ Thus, the question of who can belong and possess in Australia has been a site of major contestation ever since colonisation.⁷⁹

Another series of jarring events contributing to Australia’s cultural disorientation began with the collapse of Britain’s Singapore naval base in February 1942. Japan’s sweep through Southeast Asia in early 1942, followed by the bombing of Northern Australia in Darwin, Wyndham and Broome,⁸⁰ brought home to Australia that the imperial defence arrangement in Southeast Asia was distant and unreliable, despite the successive British guarantees that had been a staple of Anglo-Australian relations in the 1930s.⁸¹ Later, in the 1960s, Britain committed to withdrawing from ‘East of Suez’, meaning East Asia,⁸² and applied for membership in the European Economic Community in 1961, seemingly cementing its interest in Europe over the Asia Pacific.⁸³ In a time where Australia’s sense of nation was blurred into the spirit of the British Empire, the retreat of Britain’s ‘Far East’ strategic investment was shocking to the nation’s conscience as a colonial and later Commonwealth subject.⁸⁴

The subsequent transition from Empire to nation in Australian civic culture in the 1960s and 1970s was anything but straightforward; it was slow, disoriented and uncertain.⁸⁵ Australia did not ‘come of age’ on its own accord; rather, it was forced to when confronted with the threadbare leftovers of imperial emblems.⁸⁶ A ‘new nationalism’ was consequently introduced as an initiative by successive Australian governments to reinforce a more robust sense of nation.⁸⁷ The youthful idealism in anti-Vietnam protest movements, the resurrection of the Australian film industry and Gough Whitlam’s 1972 ‘It’s Time’ campaign all seemed to promise rejuvenation of the nation’s soul.⁸⁸ Russel Ward’s ‘resourceful bushman’ further emerged in social discourse alongside values of ‘mateship’ and later, a ‘fair go’ egalitarianism.⁸⁹

The nation’s new traditions, however, seemed to evoke greater reluctance than enthusiasm from the public.⁹⁰ For instance, the newly introduced Australia Day in the 1970s was met with low levels of public interest and little creative or financial direction from the Federal government.⁹¹ Even in recent years, there have been calls to change the date of Australia Day, particularly by First Nations communities, many of whom perceive the day as one of mourning.⁹² The nation thus still appears to be an incomplete colonial project with an unrecognised, ill-defined and derivative cultural heritage.⁹³ This uncertainty about the future concretely identifies at least one thing: that Australia’s past cannot hold as precedent for what lies ahead.⁹⁴

By 1966, traditional Australian nationalism along the lines of the White Australia Policy was in decline, with the subsequent removal of the Australian Citizenship Act 1973 (Cth) and introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) appearing to confirm, legally and institutionally, a new narrative of tolerance.⁹⁵ Thereafter, multiculturalism sprang forth in 1978 as a social policy that paralleled Australia’s immigration policy, designed to help settle migrants.⁹⁶ By drawing upon various ethnic cultures, Australia could weave a new social tapestry that would cure its cultural malady.⁹⁷ The policy further attempted to calm fears that migrants might dilute a distinct Australian identity, and were instead a means to enrich it.⁹⁸ Thus, it reflected both an empirical demographic change and the ideological reorganisation of society.⁹⁹ With multiculturalism, perhaps an all-encompassing idea of nationhood echoing Australia’s British predecessors would no longer be necessary.¹⁰⁰

It is against this ongoing historical tradition of insecurity and desire to not only belong to a cultural community but possess independent spirit, that gives meaning to the modern enthusiasm for Lunar New Year in cities like Sydney. Importantly, however, Chinese-Australian culture was not the poster child for multiculturalism when it was first introduced. The 1971 Australian Census found that 9.6 per cent of migrants came from cultural backgrounds similar to Australia, such as the UK, New Zealand, Canada or America.¹⁰¹ Other ethnicities that dominated migrant intake during this time hailed from Southern or Eastern Europe, such as Greece, Italy and the then Yugoslavia.¹⁰² Moreover, even when Asian immigration began to increase, there was substantial opposition to migrants arriving from Southeast Asia (Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia), and later also Northeast Asia (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) in the 1980s and 1990s.¹⁰³ Ghassan Hage has written about the specific genre of fear not only that White Australia might lose the distinctly European identity it had cultivated for so long, but that White Australians were being robbed of their social mobility and potential.¹⁰⁴ In this way, multicultural politics and an increasing Asian migrant presence were often perceived as both a national and personal disintegration of existing social hierarchies, control and power.¹⁰⁵

Despite this ‘discourse of white decline’ and anti-Asian sentiment of policy debate, the increasing participation of the Sydney City Council, for example, in Lunar New Year festivities during the late 1990s and early 2000s seemed to reposition Chinese culture on the frontlines of the city’s multicultural policies.¹⁰⁶ City organisers could reorient and recast a social narrative of inclusion in an active renegotiation of the city’s self-identity.¹⁰⁷ In 1996, the Sydney Lord Mayor gave an address titled an ‘appeal to racial harmony’, in which he asserted: ‘within the city limits, we have had a strong and cherished presence of a substantial Chinese business and residential population’.¹⁰⁸ By the year 2000, the Council had established a ‘Chinatown New Year Steering Committee’ and a ‘Chinatown Cultural Advisory Committee’.¹⁰⁹ Furthermore, in 2005, when Councillor Lee asked the Lord Mayor to consider increasing funding for the Greek Festival, noting that substantial resources were dedicated to Lunar New Year in the past year, the Lord Mayor dismissively replied that the Greek Festival should apply for community grants just like everyone else.¹¹⁰ In 2007, the City of Sydney likewise discontinued the yearly production of the Spanish Festival.¹¹¹ In comparison, by the early 2010s, Lunar New Year was almost always discussed in Sydney City Council Proceedings, whether in praise for the recent festival just bygone or excitement for the next. In 2012, the Lord Mayor singled out three ‘well-established’ and ‘exceptional events’ for the summer – being the City Christmas celebrations, Sydney New Year’s Eve and the ‘Chinese New Year’ festival.¹¹²

Regional enthusiasm in and around Sydney for the festival has since increased exponentially. In 2003, Parramatta Council received $20,000 worth of contributions from local businesses for celebrations.¹¹³ By 2021, Ku-ring-gai Council secured $15,000 for celebrations from the New South Wales government’s ‘Multicultural NSW Celebrating Diversity Grants Program’.¹¹⁴ Even in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the City of Sydney allocated $1.9 million to festivities.¹¹⁵ More recently under the ‘Stronger Together Local Council Major Festival Grants Program’, three out of the 15 successful local city councils were awarded grants ranging from $240,000 to $980,000 to celebrate Lunar New Year over 2023 and 2024.¹¹⁶

Interestingly, in the 2001 City of Sydney Council Proceedings, the Lord Mayor had reasoned that in developing Lunar New Year as part of its festival calendar, the City was determining ‘whether an event either provides excitement to the City or has the potential to grow into a strong and uniquely Sydney event (emphasis added)’.¹¹⁷ This localised search for distinctiveness echoes Australia’s broader yearning for a sense of self, illustrating that ‘Australianness’ is not absolute and is, instead, capable of being renegotiated in a contemporary context. The festival therefore contributed to the shifting understandings of broader social identity, intertwining itself with the city’s cultural heritage.

Lunar New Year has also provided a forum for social interaction and participation that extended into a non-Chinese public, further contributing to the multicultural narrative in cities like Sydney, Bendigo and Brisbane.¹¹⁸ Journalist Ed Stokes wrote in a 1987 ‘Year of the Rabbit’ editorial for The Canberra Times that:

for two nights the crowds stand shoulder to shoulder, dwarfed by Dixon Street’s imposing Chinese gates. Bursts of crackers momentarily reveal delighted faces among the drifting smoke, more than half of them European Australians.¹¹⁹

Stokes’ Chinese-Australian interviewee, Mark Wang, elaborated:

many city Australians now know something about Chinese food, calligraphy, the martial arts … it’s the European Australians who are the catalysts; without their interest in the festival we couldn’t go on.¹²⁰

Hence, rather than being a selective hub for the Chinese community, the festival evolved into a tool of cross-cultural appreciation, connection and understanding.¹²¹ Similarly, in Bendigo’s Easter procession, the dragon performance originally undertaken by Chinese-Australian participants attracted non-Chinese helpers who helped carry the puppet as early as 1951.¹²² Moreover, in Queensland, festival organisers of the 2018 Brisbane Chinese Festival specifically moved the venue from a Chinese dominated local suburb to King George Square in the centre of the city. Here, the Minister of State Education and Chief of Brisbane police walked alongside Chinese community leaders in the Lunar parade. One of the festival’s organisers commented that this public embrace was designed to demonstrate ‘harmonious coexistence’.¹²³ What originated as a festive ritual used to express Chinese identity by the migrant community later fostered inclusive social experiences that aligned with shared narratives of harmony.¹²⁴

Thus, the discovery and negotiation of individual identity have, to some extent, been organically infused with the creation of new social networks and public narrative of inclusion. Numerous layers of meaning became attached to the festival such that different ethnic identities, whether Chinese or non-Chinese, were refracted and rebuilt through rituals like dragon parades. Festival organisers, too, embraced celebrations as a means to reflect the diversity of its citizens and consciously maintain multiculturalism while promoting city tourism.¹²⁵ Though it may not represent the experiences of the nation comprehensively, when considered against the context of Australia’s meandering path to nationhood and later adoption of multiculturalism, the celebration of Lunar New Year in these localised examples has provided opportunities to renegotiate broader social identities, illustrating the transformative capacity of the festival.

These empowering narratives could, however, narrate a sterilised version of multiculturalism, potentially providing a recent history of cultural harmony that bypasses a longer history of racial exclusion. After all, Lunar New Year as we know it today ‘couldn’t have happened in the old “White Australia”’.¹²⁶ For example, despite the appearance of social solidarity and cultural visibility for the Chinese-Australian community, the rhetoric of multiculturalism often functions differently to occurrences in everyday society. In 2021, cities around Australia planned a smorgasbord of Lunar New Year festivities during February, with more than 80 events and attractions in Sydney, 30 events across 20 suburbs in Brisbane and a Lunar New Year Street Party in Adelaide.¹²⁷ Yet, the 2021 Lowy Institute survey released only a month later in March titled ‘Being Chinese in Australia’ found that over the last 12 months, 37 per cent of Chinese-Australian interviewees were treated ‘differently or less favourably because of their Chinese heritage’, 31 per cent had ‘been called offensive names’, and 18 per cent were ‘physically threatened or attacked’.¹²⁸ Furthermore, despite the ubiquity of ‘Happy Lunar New Year’ messaging in the public sphere, the festival is not an official public holiday in Australia, leaving those who celebrate torn between working or taking leave.¹²⁹ Thus, the festival’s characterisation as a visual lexicon or ambassador of multiculturalism must be balanced against its potential to be exploited for cosmetic convenience and as a colourful diversion to the inadequate protection of Chinese communities in Australia.

National politics of Lunar New Year

As the significance of Lunar New Year gradually expanded outwards from a celebration by Chinese-Australian communities to becoming associated with the public narratives of cities like Sydney and Bendigo, could the festival’s cultural weight extend to considerations of national or geopolitical identity? Beyond the festival’s capacity to influence dynamics in private or more localised public spheres, Lunar New Year’s transformative potential could be mapped onto Australia’s political terrain, providing a limited but nonetheless useful opportunity to mitigate and redirect unproductive discourse surrounding China and Chinese-Australians. In doing so, we add to Australia’s reconciliation with its place in the world, developing more fruitful discussion on national and civic identity in an ever-shifting global context.

Since 2016, bilateral relations with China have deteriorated, with the release of the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the establishment of AUKUS and the introduction of bills like the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2018 and Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2018.¹³⁰ Tensions on both sides have been further inflamed by China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and racial attacks on the Chinese-Australian community during the origin tracing of COVID-19.¹³¹ Additionally, China’s suspension of trade with Australia for certain products, such as the imposition of export restrictions on three Australian meat abattoirs in the middle of 2020 and early 2022, has cast doubt as to their intentions.¹³² China’s actions combined with Australian reactions have exacerbated existing Australian anxieties regarding sovereignty and identity.¹³³ Amidst this toxic environment currently facing Chinese-Australians seeking to participate in public life,¹³⁴ Lunar New Year not only provides a safe space of engagement, but also creates an opportunity for Australian politicians and media to reframe national attitudes. Specifically, just as transnational identity bonds are established or maintained for the Chinese-Australian diaspora during Lunar New Year, so too can more productive public understandings of Australia’s regional identity colour both past and present.¹³⁵ Though Lunar New Year does not set out to mitigate all political difficulties nor prevent them from happening, progress, albeit small, can be made to cushion unproductive discourse arising out of the ebbs and flows of Sino-Australian relations.

Australia’s visualisation of China has taken many forms – from great ‘hordes’ and ‘coolie’ labourers¹³⁶ to an economic opportunity¹³⁷ and now potentially a source of multicultural capital. Suspicion has co-existed alongside friendship, paranoia alongside harmony and lingering distrust alongside pragmatic engagement, with fear underpinning it all.¹³⁸ One key explanatory model adopted in Western historiography of Sino-Australian relations is the ‘pendulum’ metaphor, which has identified successive imaginations of China that shift between friendliness and fear.¹³⁹ For instance, conservative Cold War opinions regarding China as an ‘anti-Utopia’ and ‘arch-villain’ of international relations was rapidly abated with the formal recognition of China on 22 December 1972.¹⁴⁰ Both the momentum to rock violently from one imagination to the next and the ultimate damage caused by swings of the pendulum are particularly destructive owing to some inherent differences between the two countries. For example, China is a state-socialist country, while Australia operates under a parliamentary liberal democracy.¹⁴¹ Edmund Fung and Colin Mackerras summarised the differences in the 1980s as follows:

China is the world’s most populous country; Australia has a very small population. The Chinese people are mostly poor and living in backward conditions, Australians are generally well off and the vast majority enjoy a high standard of living, the Australian economy is far more modernised than the Chinese. China is one of the centres of world politics, Australia is relatively isolated geographically and is a middle power at best.¹⁴²

Yet, Australia’s sense of nation, no matter how discomforting a notion for some, has been inextricably tied to the Asia Pacific.¹⁴³ As a result, Australia’s own internal strategic imagination weighs heavily with a perceived choice between history and geography. The nation has generally thought of itself as a ‘middle power’, and one that needs to balance ambition against capability, for it lacks the necessary omnipotence for both.¹⁴⁴ This balancing act has manifested through two traditional features characterising Australian foreign policy – a fear of invasion, and a reliance on ‘great and powerful friends’.¹⁴⁵

First, Australia has always been afraid of foreign invasion or external aggression, particularly from its Asian neighbours.¹⁴⁶ The arrival of Chinese migrants to the Victorian goldfields in the late 1840s, for example, prompted fears of a ‘countless throng of Chinamen’, ‘invading army’ and ‘Chinese tidal wave’.¹⁴⁷ So intense was collective suspicion that in 1881, the Victorian parliament introduced a Chinese Influx Restriction Bill restricting one Chinese migrant for every 100 tonnes of shipping.¹⁴⁸ The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 too, although not targeted specifically at Chinese migrants, nonetheless operated to control and protect Australian borders from its Asia-Pacific neighbours.¹⁴⁹ The overwhelming fear of China’s teeming millions continued into the twentieth century, with a 1982 article titled ‘About every fourth person on the world is Chinese’ from The Canberra Times remarking: ‘it has been said that another Chinese is born every instant’.¹⁵⁰ This is further complicated by the value of economic partnership with China, which has remained Australia’s largest trading partner since 2009. Recently, Australia’s exports of goods and services to China rose 76.2 per cent over four years from $95.68 billion in 2016 to $168.573 billion in 2019.¹⁵¹ Despite this economic understanding of regional utility, overall, Australia still viewed itself, especially during the first half of the twentieth century, as a lonesome Western outpost in the Asia Pacific.¹⁵²

Consequently, the second feature of Australia’s balancing act has relied upon what Robert Menzies called Australia’s ‘great and powerful friends’ (Britain and the United States).¹⁵³ This strategy exaggerated the ‘quasi-mythical cultural affinities’ shared with both nations in the hope of creating a protective buffer around Australia’s coastline, satisfying its own security anxieties in the Asia Pacific.¹⁵⁴ In 1939, Prime Minister Menzies pointed out that ‘What Great Britain calls the Far East is to us the Near North’.¹⁵⁵ His words were a stark reminder not only of the distance between Britain and Australia, but indeed of the alarming closeness between Asia and Australia.¹⁵⁶ When China declared its international presence on 1 October 1949, Australia instinctively looked to its two powerful allies for advice, and while it was inclined to follow Britain’s lead, it instead deferred to the American stance for no recognition.¹⁵⁷

This dependency on foreign powers is particularly apparent with respect to Australia’s contemporary relationship with the US.¹⁵⁸ Even in the era of the White Australia Policy, Attorney General Alfred Deakin remarked that Australia would build its nation not just for itself, but for the community of Anglo-Saxon peoples, following ‘so largely the precedent of the [US]’.¹⁵⁹ Australia has fought with the US in all major world conflicts since World War II, and its relationship generally enjoys both political and public support.¹⁶⁰ From signing the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS Treaty) in 1951, Australia continues its strategic alliance by participating in AUKUS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.¹⁶¹ Mark Beeson and Zeng Jinghan explain that this dependency is so great that ‘China–Australia relations are simply an extension of great power relations between China and the [US]’.¹⁶² Zhou Fangyin, on the other hand, purports that not all Australian actions have aligned with its friend, instead stemming from its own autonomous threat and interest perceptions.¹⁶³

It is against this background of policymaking that Australia has navigated its relationship with China, which has always existed as a security, political and ideological dilemma.¹⁶⁴ This brief literature review is by no means exhaustive, but we must remember that this is a contemporary history. The ongoing discomfort that plagues Australia today is exactly why we must write carefully so as to not create momentum for another swing of the pendulum. Currently, political and economic discourses dominate examinations of Sino-Australian exchanges. Propelled forth by undercurrents of anxiety, they have given rise to volatile and inconsistent sentiments. Perhaps such rhetoric is less likely to trigger insecurities surrounding Australian identity in a time where the nation continues to grapple with its sense of self, particularly in the realm of civic culture and national identity.¹⁶⁵ Is Australia ‘One Nation’ or a ‘multicultural nation’? Part of Asia or ‘the West’?¹⁶⁶

Events like Lunar New Year exist in a cultural overlap that simultaneously trigger Australia’s deep-seated concerns about belonging alongside foreign policy suspicions of China. Indeed, in 1976, Australia’s first ambassador to China, Stephen FitzGerald, acknowledged a need for politico-cultural engagement, urging Australia to take a ‘cultural leap’.¹⁶⁷ Jocelyn Chey has also highlighted the policy value of cultural diplomacy, some of which included the Beijing visit from Tasmania’s Rosny Children’s Choir and the marching of China’s Terracotta Warriors to the National Gallery of Victoria in 1982.¹⁶⁸ When viewed solely through an ideological, political or economic lens, Australia’s relationship with China enjoys neither social intimacy nor cultural heritage like it does with its ‘great and powerful friends’.¹⁶⁹ Yet, as will be shown below, Lunar New Year has progressively allowed leaders to remind the nation of shared histories and regional identities. Therefore, by interrogating the festival in the context of Sino-Australian relations, we not only reflect upon the national identity Australia has claimed for itself but create the potential to negotiate a calmer space for political engagement.

The political speeches of Australian leaders during Lunar festivities recharacterises the narrative of Chinese-Australian settlement not as the foreign-policy tale of fear, but one of multicultural harmony. During a bicentenary address in 1988, Prime Minister Robert Hawke described that year’s Lunar zodiac, the Dragon, as bringing a ‘year of good luck, virtue, wealth and harmony’. He then continued to acknowledge the contributions of the Chinese-Australian community, stating:

Chinese-Australians have loomed large in Australian history, as one of the-longest-established ethnic communities in Australia’s multicultural society. Their contributions to Australia’s economic and cultural development stretch back well into the nineteenth century.¹⁷⁰

Although mentioned in passing, the Lunar zodiac carried an opportune symbolism that assisted in the Prime Minister’s reimagining of Australia’s national narrative as a multicultural nation with a long history of Chinese settlement. Similarly, in 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke at the Australian Council of Chinese Organisations dinner in celebration of Australia Day and Lunar New Year, reflecting on how:

[f]or two centuries, [the Chinese-Australian community] have been at the heart of the Australian story. And so, it is truly fitting that Chinese New Year and Australia Day fall so close together. Our celebrations and our stories belong together.¹⁷¹

The festival once more provided an opportunity to explore Australia’s cross-cultural diversity, aspire to an authentic multiculturalism and proudly assert a uniquely Australian patriotism.¹⁷²

In February 1997, the year after the Taiwan Straits Crisis and at the height of immigration policy debates, Prime Minister John Howard attended a Lunar New Year dinner. Here, he ‘wanted to take the opportunity of honouring the Chinese New Year … to say something about the fundamentals that bind all of us together as Australians’, denouncing racism and encouraging ‘openness and tolerance’. Just as Chinese-Australian communities and city organisers used the festival to engage in dialogue about their sense of self, so too was Howard using the dinner ritual to reformulate Australian values. Moreover, Howard reiterated that this was ‘not an occasion to give any kind of lecture in macro or micro-economic policy’, but spent a further three paragraphs talking about Australia’s geopolitical home in the Asia Pacific and the accompanying economic opportunities.¹⁷³ Howard’s Ciceronian praeteritio therefore also illustrates how Lunar New Year provided a way to contemplate Australia’s relationship with China. While such prose may be motivated by rhetorical pageantry, successive Australian leaders have nonetheless capitalised upon the occasion to articulate a sense of nationhood, reinforcing social cohesion within the domestic community and in the Asia Pacific.

Furthermore, during times of aggression, paranoia and insecurity in the geopolitical relationship, the festival appeared to survive with peace and prosperity. When the Chinese military fired on student protestors in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989, Australia grieved with headlines like ‘China Crisis’, ‘Special Relationship Comes to Grief’ and ‘It’s Time to Close the Door on China’.¹⁷⁴ Yet, Lunar New Year celebrations were still met with apparent enthusiasm in Sydney the year after.¹⁷⁵ In fact, in 1990 The Sydney Morning Herald reflected on how the Chinese ‘dragon … [entered] the day after Australia Day’. An interviewee in the article said, ‘[i]t epitomises Sydney today that the Chinese New Year follows so near Australia Day. One day, we are celebrating our European history and the next, our Asian future’. The article’s writer, Robyn Willis, further juxtaposed Lunar New Year’s ‘Dragon Dance’ against a ‘girls’ choir in national dress [singing] the Australian national anthem’.¹⁷⁶ The image of boisterous dragons dancing alongside a composed choir reminded audiences of the vast difference in culture and history of the two countries. Yet, the combination of rituals from two civic festivals into one event invited public discourse on how the nation might perceive itself geographically and culturally.¹⁷⁷ Australian and Chinese culture were separate, but still capable of standing side by side in harmony.¹⁷⁸ Moreover, Chinese dragons, once depicted as great beasts, hoarders of treasure and threats to stability, are now merely puppets in the parade or lanterns lighting up the dark.¹⁷⁹ Likewise, the glaring threat of Communist red is now softened by the festival as a traditional symbol of luck and protection. Despite geopolitical tension, the festival could serve as a liminal cultural intersection to prompt and aide an Australia still negotiating its post-imperial disorientation, insecurities about its place in the Asia Pacific and general cultural identity.¹⁸⁰

Thus, Lunar New Year can be used as a stepping stone to enter and exit discussions on Australian history, geopolitics and national identity. The festival has provided an opportunity for politicians and the media to recharacterise perceptions of China and its migrants, redressing the sense of distance separating Australia and China in a limited but not insignificant way.¹⁸¹ The nation’s leaders and media alike did not simply tout the exotic characteristics of an ethnic celebration but situated it within the rhetoric of Australia’s civic identity and geopolitics.¹⁸² Though the festival does not set out to influence the Sino-Australian relationship enormously, the red and golden threads woven by individuals, city councils, politicians and the media may accumulate over time to affect both historical and contemporary perceptions.¹⁸³

Conclusion

A variety of private and public actors have capitalised upon Lunar New Year to prompt, explore and announce new identities. First, Lunar New Year is a cultural site and ritual process by which ‘Chineseness’ is explored and reconstructed,¹⁸⁴ providing a space for many Chinese-Australians to reconnect, negotiate and revel in their hybrid identity.¹⁸⁵ Second, although the festival only occupies the streets for two weeks each year, it has become a permanent yearly fixture in the cultural landscape of cities like Sydney and Bendigo, appealing to non-Chinese communities and tourists alike. Though not representative of every city in Australia, these are case examples of how local councils and city organisers have used the festival to further a narrative of diversity. Finally, at a national level, Australian politicians and media have similarly used the festival as a public relations tool to produce more rounded images of national identity, home and belonging amidst a fraught relationship with China.¹⁸⁶

Lunar New Year thus reconstructs the ways in which we perceive Australian identity and history not as one of clean continuity, but instead fractured between multiple homes and under continuous negotiation.¹⁸⁷ The festival possesses a recurring transience, allowing its participants and observers to cross thresholds, from private to public, West to East, cultural to political, conceptions of the ‘other’ to formulations of a national ‘us’ and from a White Australia to a multicultural one. While its influence should not be exaggerated nor its shortcomings ignored, the celebration of Lunar New Year in Australia has, on balance, an expansive capacity that is both empowering and illuminative in examinations of Australian identity and history.¹⁸⁸

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.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

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.

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.