Asian invisibility/Asian threat: Australians talking about Asia

Background

Australia has historically had a negative relationship with Asia. ² As a British colonial society, Orientalist impulses (Said, 1977) have set the tone of its engagement for over a century. Before Federation, white settler opposition to Asian migration resulted in race riots in the mid and late 1800s (Jayasuriya and Pookong, 1999; Jupp, 2007). Fears of the ‘yellow peril’ prompted the White Australia Policy from 1901, and the ‘populate or perish’ programs of the post-war period that brought out British settlers to ensure Australia remained ‘white’ (see Jupp, 2007). The then Minister for Immigration Arthur Calwell’s comment that ‘two Wongs don’t make a White’ (Jayasuriya and Pookong, 1999: x) reflected the tone of flippant racism embedded within such policies. Concern was partly over labour market issues; the downward pressure cheaper Asian labour would put on the basic wage. But a more overarching fear was, and to some extent remains, one of invasion by Asia’s population (and racial miscegenation); its military; its despots; its communism; and, most recently, two contradictory concerns, its economic success and Islam (Jupp, 2007; Kendall, 2005; Philpott, 2001). Such invasions are a key theme in Australians’ conceptualisations of themselves, and of their political rhetoric (Burke, 2001; Papastergiadis, 2004; Younane Brookes, 2012).

There has been little respite in this relentless negativity, although the 1980s and 1990s saw a significant shift, politically, economically and militarily, with the Australian Labor Party’s ‘push into Asia’ (FitzGerald, 1997; Higgott and Nossal, 1997: 169; Philpott, 2001). The goal was to move Australia away from its Euro/US-centrism to a more Asia-Pacific focus. The development of greater economic ties, regional dialogue, military engagement (in rhetoric, if not practice) and more liberal immigration policies, prompted a rethinking of Australian identity, at least among elites. This did not mean developing an Asian identity, but perhaps a more cosmopolitan one. The education system even promoted the study of Asian societies and languages. These developments produced a reaction, however, and in the 1990s Pauline Hanson reignited debate about the place of Asians in Australia, racialising them as a collective Other threatening the monocultural white national identity (Ang and Stratton, 2001: 107). Hanson asserted that developments during the Labor years meant Australia was being ‘swamped by Asians’, at risk of being overcome by ‘the yellow race’ (Higgott and Nossal, 1997: 169). Her message was that Asianness is incommensurate with Australianness (Lo, 2006: 17), reinforcing the notion that Asian immigration poses a threat to ‘our heritage, our identity … our values’ (Philpott, 2001: 375).

During the early 2000s the conservative Howard government, in a successful attempt to bring back to the fold voters it had lost to Hanson, quietly implemented most of Hanson’s policies (Jupp, 2007), using a more temperate discourse about Australian-ness directed at returning Australians’ orientations to Europe and the US, without necessarily vilifying Asia in the process. Much of his rhetoric did, however, have a Huntingtonian ‘clash of civilizations’ quality to it, emphasising Australia’s historical and cultural allegiance to Europe (Fozdar and Spittles, 2009; Johnson, 2007).

Recent policy-level activity appears to recognise that Australia’s future is inevitably linked with Asia’s, and to attempt to raise Australians’ awareness of, and improve attitudes towards, their nearest neighbours. For example, in the new national high school curriculum, one of the three ‘cross-curriculum priorities’, to be built into teaching across all subjects, is ‘Asia’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2012), although this is now under review. The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper released in 2013 generated much discussion about Australia’s economic (if not social and cultural) relationship with Asia. Engaging both cultural and economic goals, the ‘reverse’ Colombo Plan, was implemented in 2013 to raise awareness about Asia among Australian students, funding scholarships for study and internships in the Indo Pacific region. The recent G20 Summit saw the leaders of China and India paid particular attention, and resulting plans for Free Trade Agreements with both countries have been reported positively in the press. And Japan, for most of the latter half of the last century the source of significant invasion anxiety among Australians, is now seen by Prime Minister Tony Abbott as ‘our best friend in Asia’ (The Australian, 2013), part of an imaginary alliance with the US against China.

Yet despite such initiatives, it has been argued that fear remains the dominant factor shaping Australia’s relations with Asia. Images and metaphors used to describe Australia’s Asian neighbours are generally negative, based in anxiety and fear (Philpott, 2001). Even the current hysteria around ‘border protection’ reflects on-going fears of invasion from the north. Most academic books about Australia’s relationship with Asia published since the late 1990s reflect this negativity, or an ambivalence towards Asia that includes a sense of threat. The titles are indicative: The Asianisation of Australia? (Jayasuriya and Pookong, 1999), Australia’s Ambivalence towards Asia (D’Cruz and Steele, 2003), Ways of Seeing China: From Yellow Peril to Shangrila (Kendall, 2005), There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia (Wesley, 2011), Australia’s Asia: From Yellow Peril to Asian Century (Walker and Sobocinska, 2012). Even historical works from this period signal these concerns, such as Walker’s (1999) Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850–1939. They reflect what Ang has called ‘a persistent underlying anxiety about Australia’s Asianised future’ (2000: xiv).

On the other hand, there is simultaneously a countervailing tendency. Australia has been criticised for its complacency, a lack of curiosity and interest in what is going on in the world generally, and with its closest neighbours particularly, in terms of Asia’s incredible rate of development over the last two decades. Instead Australians are characterised as being self-satisfied, with an insular expectation that things will continue as they always have done. Wesley (2011: 2) says Australians have failed to notice ‘an inversion of our world’ occurring over the last two decades – the disorder and under-development once associated with Asia is in fact what strikes Australians when they return home from visits there! The sense that Australia is remote and small, unimportant in relation to the rest of the world, and thus perhaps safe from political and economic forces influencing other nations, is a contradictory conviction (contradictory to the sense of anxiety and threat) that paradoxically offers a sense of comfort (Wesley, 2011).

This article asks how Australians are engaging with the new economic, social, political and cultural environment that links Australia with Asia, and the extent to which these attitudes persist.

Methodology

Much of the academic literature analysing Australia’s relationship with Asia is of two kinds; political science literature focused on Australia’s international relations with its closest neighbours (e.g. Dalrymple, 2003; FitzGerald, 1997; Higgott and Nossal, 1997; McGillivray and Smith, 1997; Wesley, 2011), and ‘cultural studies’ works and literary analyses of novels, art and other popular media that engage the Australia/Asia relationship (e.g. Ang et al., 2000; Broinowski, 1996; Dever, 1997; Ferrall et al., 2005; Gilbert et al., 2000; Lo, 2006; Walker and Sobocinska, 2012). Surprisingly little research exists analysing the ways in which everyday Australians themselves conceive of Asia. This article considers that question.

Data is drawn from 26 focus groups (n = 223) undertaken across five Australian states as part of a larger project exploring Australian, transnational and post-national identities. Focus groups elicit information about sociopolitical identities (Gamson, 1992; Munday, 2006; Phillips and Smith, 2000), generating free-flowing discussion productive of multi-layered data suitable for content, thematic and discourse analysis (Krueger and Casey, 2000; Puchta and Potter, 2004). They can efficiently expose collective discourses and meta-narratives, particularly the binary nature of such discourses, due to the opportunity to observe their ‘thesis/antithesis’ format (Munday, 2006; Skrbis and Woodward, 2007).

Instead of a set of questions, a series of still images was used to prompt discussion, applying a technique (and indeed two of the same images, with permission) used by Skrbis and Woodward (2007) in their study of ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’ among Queenslanders. The use of images offers a more open trigger than verbal questions, evoking deeper elements of human consciousness (Harper, 2002). Images were selected to generate discussion about ethnic, religious, national and supranational identities and relationships, orientations to the globe and visions for the future. They included pictures of the Australian flag, a world map, an Aboriginal painting, the leaders of China and Australia shaking hands, an aeroplane, a young woman with two passports, the Australian values statement, and the Australian Multiculturalism Policy booklet. Images of an Asian person assisting an older/disabled person, and of pollution-emitting smokestacks were also included. The selection inevitably limited what people talked about, but was designed (along with facilitators’ prompts) to keep participants focused on issues around identity. The result was broad and rich, and sometimes surprising, discussion.

Focus group discussions were conducted among pre-existing groups. To ensure a mix of ethnic minorities, migrants and mainstream participants, half were ethno-specific, migrant or multicultural groups, the rest collectives based on some shared interest (e.g. sporting groups, work-based groups, a Christian group, an environmental group). The rationale for this selection was that individuals would feel more comfortable discussing issues of identity among people known to them. Participants ranged from 18-year-olds to over 80 (average age 43). Highest educational achievement was high school for 28 per cent, TAFE (18 per cent), undergraduate (30 per cent) and postgraduate (21 per cent). Men were under-represented (35 per cent). No claim is made about the representativeness of the sample, although an effort was made to get as wide a spread as possible; the goal was to generate interchanges between participants that reflect the sorts of discussions going on around dinner tables, office lunch rooms, and pubs around Australia.

The results section begins with quantitative data from the 2013/14 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AUSSA), ³ showing Australians’ orientations to Asia, then proceeds to summarise the main themes from the focus groups in relation to Asia, identified using content and thematic analysis, and concludes with more detailed discursive analysis of the ways in which the Asian threat is articulated.

Results

One AUSSA question asks how close participants feel to their local area, state, nation and region. The results (Table 1, n = 1636) indicate that Asia comes a very poor fourth in such a measure, with almost eight out of ten respondents feeling ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ close to Asia. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the nation-state is the entity to which respondents feel most connected, with over 92 per cent agreeing they feel close or very close to Australia.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Feelings of closeness towards town/state/nation/region.

How close do you feel to:	1Very close	2Close	3Not very close	4Not close at all
Your town or city	30.3	50.9	15.3	3.0
Your State or Territory	25.1	51.7	19.0	3.0
Australia	53.6	38.8	5.6	1.4
Asia	2.7	17.1	34.1	43.3

Source: Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (2013).

A clearer sense of the quality and nuances of Australians’ responses to Asia can be derived from analysis of focus group discussions.

Responses to all images were very loco-centric. Participants were asked to respond to the images in terms of how the image made them feel about themselves and their place in the world. While migrant focus groups tended to discuss transnational relationships more than non-migrant groups, discourses were surprisingly similar. A blunt content analysis reveals the (ir)relevance of Asia.

The word ‘Asia’ occurred 187 times in the focus group discussions; mostly in relation to two images that included phenotypically Asian men (Chinese Premier Hu Jintao; and an Asian man assisting someone with a disability). The image of the Australian Multiculturalism Policy also generated a few comments about Asians. The image of ‘Australian made’ provoked some discussion about goods from Asia, their quality and value, jobs being lost to Asia, and Asian ‘sweatshops’. Several groups identified the image of polluting smokestacks as being in Asia, although there was no visual cue to suggest any particular location.

Analysis of the discourses around these mentions of ‘Asia’ revealed a range of shared topics/themes across focus groups, regardless of demographics. This included discussion of Asian markets, Asian economies, cheap Asian labour, cheap Asian imports, and Australian property being bought up by Asia/Asians (more on this shortly). There was some positivity towards the evolution of Australia’s relationship with Asia (often linked with criticism of Australia’s close relationship with the USA), and a growing imperative to further develop this relationship, but also a great deal of subtle negativity linked to a sense of threat (discussed shortly). The migration of Asians to Australia, including Asians as part of multicultural Australia (positive) and the formation of ghettos (negative), were dealt with cursorily. Positive discussions occurred very occasionally around Asian values (e.g. respect for the elderly), Asian culture (art, food), the need for inclusion of Asia/Asian languages in the school curriculum, criticism of the general lack of knowledge among Australians about Asia, and lack of media coverage of Asia. However, there was negativity about Asians and criminality (people-smuggling, drugs). For example, the key political issue raised in relation to the image of the map of the world was ‘boat people’ (asylum seekers who arrive by boat), prompting discussion about legitimacy, ‘queue-jumping’, economic migration, people-smugglers, the need for stronger border protection, deaths at sea and so on. Interestingly, there was almost no mention of Japan, which appears to have slid off the radar in terms of Australians’ concerns.

Of the 187 times the words ‘Asia’ or ‘Asian’ were mentioned, only eight occurred in relation to the map of the world (in only six focus groups). Thus 20 focus groups did not mention Asia on seeing a map of world and being asked about how they feel about their place in it. This image was selected in part for its potential to generate discussion about Australia’s place in the region. Supporting the AUSSA survey results, this demonstrates how little Australians feel embedded in Asia geographically or culturally.

Where it was mentioned, Asia was identified as a neighbour (both positively and negatively), and a holiday destination. Australia was occasionally described as a ‘bridge’ between Asia and Europe. The most common response to the world map image was ‘we are so far away’, with no identification of where ‘we’ are ‘far away’ from. Thus the European land mass remains the invisible point of geographic and cultural reference. A significant absence was discussion about the benefits of being close to Asia. Academics and business people often emphasise the importance of sharing the same time zone as much of Asia, for trade and other engagements; and significant proportions of Australia’s permanent and temporary migrants come from Asian countries, yet these themes were seldom raised. Where proximity was raised, it was to criticise it in terms of aid ⁴ or the number of Asians in Australia. Indeed, Australia’s isolation from the rest of the world was frequently mentioned as a positive (as well as a negative, in personal terms, given distance from Europe). Some focus groups felt strongly that this ‘lucky country’ benefited from its isolation, that ‘our little corner of the world’, being far removed from the affairs of the big powers, meant that Australia is ‘under the radar’, its insignificance making it safe, supporting Wesley’s (2011) argument. This isolation was also seen as protecting it from pollution and biological hazards. Another related discourse was built around the idea that ‘We’re lucky that we’re not them’, referring to Asia and other regions.

Thus a wide range of topics was covered in relation to Asia. Despite this, there was little in-depth engagement with issues around Asia, that is, these topics were often noted in passing and not taken up for more developed discussion. Notably, in relation to the map of the world, Asia was almost invisible. Instead, the focus was almost entirely on Australia, Europe and the US.

Turning to more detailed analysis of transcript extracts, the image of the former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd shaking hands with Chinese Premier Hu Jintau was expected to generate discussion about Australia’s relationship with China, from an economic, political or cultural point of view, signalling a change in orientation from the UK and US to the region. Participants might have expressed pride in the fact that Rudd could speak Mandarin, making him well-placed to progress a more positive relationship with Asia. Instead, the most common response to this image was to focus on Australia’s internal politics – specifically his sudden removal from the leadership by a rival (the ‘backstabbing’ by Gillard) and disappointment or support for his achievements.

Thus the first response focused on Australian politics, not China, or Australia’s relationship with China, nor even Rudd’s special abilities in relation to China. These responses suggest that Australians (including migrants) are very parochial in their worldview.

A few groups, like the third quote above, questioned the validity of the photograph, seeing it as a stage-managed sound-byte for media consumption. Some even questioned Rudd’s ability to speak Mandarin. This level of suspicion suggests the distance between the political realm and the person-in-the-street.

After this initial reaction, threat, specifically anxiety at Australia’s vulnerability in relation to Asia (and China particularly), was the major discussion topic generated by the image. In the following example (and another not quoted, where the term ‘obsequious’ is used to describe the apparent relationship in the photograph between Rudd and the Chinese leader), the body language itself is seen to represent something sinister, although the speaker is keen to emphasise that this is not a racist reaction.

Here, a sense of ‘vulnerability’ as a ‘small nation’ that is geographically close to Asia, is made explicit, symbolically reflected in the respective leaders’ body language. The necessary response to this vulnerability is the need to ‘suck up to’, to ingratiate ourselves with, China, to counter the potential threat that lurks behind the smiles and hand-shaking.

The notion that the Chinese are ‘powerful’, ‘smart’, and there are ‘a lot of them’ was common.

This extract builds on the idea that the potential threat generates the need for both wariness and the development of a positive relationship with China because of its power, numbers and ability. The threat is very close to the surface, articulated by ‘The Phantom’ (self-selected pseudonym) in a concern about Australian farms being sold to Chinese. Once again the speaker is careful not to be seen as racist (using many qualifiers and hesitations, such as ‘um’, ‘sort of thing’, ‘I think’) (Van Dijk, 1987), noting that his concerns apply to any foreign investment. If Australia is not ‘careful’ it will ‘lose’, and although what is to be lost is unspecified, the implied threat is strong.

When participants discussed the Chinese contribution to Australia’s economy, they identified a limit to the relationship Australia should develop with China. A group of racially Chinese participants (formed around their shared experience of having been born or lived in Papua New Guinea) warned against developing too close a relationship – noting the Chinese are ‘sly’.

The argument here, one framed specifically as something the researcher must tell the government, is that China is very astute in developing mining interests in various parts of world, including Africa and the Pacific. Australia’s reliance on China to buy its minerals may make it vulnerable to this competition, but the concern is also for Australia as ‘an island on its own’ with a small population, being surrounded by the Chinese. While it is not stated, the suggestion is one of possible take-over for these mineral interests. Australia has to ‘be careful’ not to ‘make a wrong move’. The imagery of ‘Chinese … starting to put out their roots’, ‘surrounding us’, is only a step removed from the now infamous Mongolian octopus image of 1886 (May, 1886) which reflected the fear of an over-reaching Asia 130 years ago. What is perhaps surprising is that this overt suspicion should come from a group who would be seen by many Australians as Chinese. Because this was a close-knit group of those with a shared background, it is unlikely that a ‘social desirability’ effect explains this (i.e. they weren’t trying to impress mainstream Australians). Rather, it appears a genuine concern about the threat of Chinese imperialism, from an insiders’ perspective.

The final section of this article analyses two extended extracts in more detail to demonstrate how this threat is perceived, articulated and, in some cases, challenged. The following discussion from a sporting group in Sydney illustrates these fears, linked ambivalently with a sense of promise of new opportunities, sentiments shared across a number of focus groups.

This extract demonstrates the thesis/antithesis structure of the argument, with the same sources of perceived threat identified – mining interests, land acquisition and population. The desire to shut down engagement with Asia is strong from a number of participants, who fear the direction in which trade is taking Australia. Everything is exaggerated, using what discourse analysts have called ‘extreme case formulations’ (Pomerantz, 1986) – the threat is ‘really scary’ (the word ‘scare’ or ‘scary’ is used three times), the land is sold in ‘huge quantities’, ‘we are so in debt’, their population is ‘exploding’, they ‘own all the companies here’. The sense of fear and anxiety is palpable.

The conversation moves, midway, into a critique of the way Asia deals with the environment and resource management, and the potential risk to Australia. This critique becomes a much broader discourse around the incompatibility of what is glossed as ‘cultural difference’ (in order to ensure, once again, that it is not taken as racist). The argument of ‘Banana’ is that Asians are buying up resources and land, their population is expanding so ‘they start coming over here’ and do not treat the land with respect. ‘Banana’ frames her fear not in terms of fear for herself, her culture or her way of life, specifically, but as concern for the environment. ⁶ Yet underlying this, the real source of her concern is apparent. It is worth noting that this discussion comes from a sporting club in an area of Sydney made infamous by the Cronulla race riots. ⁷ During the riots young Anglo Australians expressed their sense that migrants (in that instance, Lebanese Muslims) were invading the country and pushing Australians around. A similar sentiment is being expressed here.

The one participant (‘Jim’) voicing the need for a more positive engagement with Asia went on to point to evidence that in fact Australia’s record in resource management has not been stellar. This voice of dissent indicates the discussions were not exclusively negative; however such arguments were rare.

Similarly, a group of Vietnam veterans had an ambivalent response. Like the earlier examples concerned about Australia’s obsequiousness to China, one of the first comments in this group was that the image showed Australia ‘kowtowing to the Asians’ (a term also used in another focus group). Then, after a side-track to domestic politics, the following interaction occurred:

This particular focus group was characterised by these short interchanges of only a few words with ‘opinion’ being constructed collaboratively by several speakers. It shows the cohesion of the group, their mutual support, and the shared nature of the discourse being built, demonstrating how articulated opinions and attitudes are best read as instantiations of broader discursive repertoires (see Wetherell and Potter, 1996). Significantly, every single time it occurs, the recognition that Australia is part of Asia is immediately followed by a ‘whether we like it or not’, a construction common across many focus groups. The sense of looming power, with two small ‘Anglo-Saxon’ nations (Australia and New Zealand) being forced to develop a relationship with China, since ‘we’ve got to have a great friendship’ because to do otherwise would be ‘committing political suicide’, once again conjures the Mongolian octopus. It is a grudging, and somewhat suspicious and self-interested engagement, which is simultaneously a cause of concern due to the economic, and apparently growing military, power of China, evident in the rhetorical question: ‘Why are they building the biggest navy in the world?’ Such sentiments resonate with those expressed by Senator Lambie in the opening to the article. The international relationships are described as a game, where the ‘Caucasians’, also mentioned in an earlier extract, should ‘stick together’ against the Asians (China, Indonesia and India are named).

Conclusion

Using empirical evidence, the two themes of anxiety and complacency noted in earlier literature have been analysed, demonstrating discursively how these are articulated by ‘ordinary’ Australians. It suggests the outbursts by the Palmer United Party Senators actually reflect popular opinion, if somewhat more rabidly. This should perhaps not be surprising, given Australia’s colonial legacy and continued self-narrative as a white Christian country (Ang, 2000; Fozdar and Spittles, 2009; Hage, 1998; Maddox, 2005). Yet it is significant that these discourses were common across the range of focus groups – whether migrant or not – supporting Younane Brookes’ (2012) contention that Australian identity rests, at least in part, on management of a sense of regional threat. Asia is one of the current threats, a ‘them’ against which we define ‘us’. While the threat is not framed (at least obviously) as a ‘racial’ one, but in economic and, to a lesser extent, political and environmental, terms, fear of cultural and racial loss clearly underlies some of the concerns expressed.

Writing in the 1990s, Higgott and Nossal (1997) pessimistically argued that Australia can neither ‘relocate’ itself through deeper involvement with Asia, nor withdrawal to Euro/US-centrism. They recommend an acceptance of liminality, arguing ‘Australia’s two worlds will refuse to sit easily with one another: the kind of anti-Asian views expressed by Hanson will coexist with “Asianisation” initiatives that have survived the defeat of the ALP’ (1997: 173–4) ⁸ and suggest that both Asians and Australians will remain unwilling to embrace a common identity (1997: 183). Indeed, as FitzGerald (1997: 4) suggested, ‘the Asian challenge for Australia is not economic or commercial. It is intellectual, and the issues are political and cultural’. On the other hand, writing at the same time, McAllister and Ravenhill (1998) predicted that public opinion would shift to support closer relations with Asia, using data suggesting negativity and perceived threat were concentrated in the older generation.

The data analysed above, however, demonstrate that little has changed in the two decades since these comments were made. There is little evidence that the wider population is aware of the ‘inversion’ Wesley (2011) notes, apart from vague fears of being overwhelmed by an economic giant. Asia is to a large extent invisible in most Australians’ consciousness. Where it does arise, positive commentary is inevitably followed by negative, which becomes the topic for extended discussion. This represents a new manifestation of ‘Australia’s Asian future’ anxiety (Ang, 2000). Many of the standard stereotypes of Asians, and Chinese in particular (sly, smart, overpopulated, business-minded), ⁹ remain, and are applied to the modern context where fears of invasion by Asia’s population, its military and, most importantly, its economic success, are paramount. Underlying these is concern about the potential threat to the Australian way of life and culture, with racial and cultural anxieties evident just below the surface of the discussion.

The invisibility of Asia, and the negativity and shallowness with which the general public engages with it when it does engage, should be a matter of concern. The focus on domestic issues suggests a level of parochial thinking that continues to privilege the nation over the region. Rather than moving in the direction of a more cosmopolitan future characterised by openness to others (cf. Beck, 2006), the evidence presented here suggests that, in relation to their closest neighbours, Australians remain stubbornly parochial. Hypothesising about the reasons for this persistence is beyond the scope of this article, but the lack of political leadership of alternative discourses is surely one explanation.