The Chinese Australian community and Liberal values

Contrary to entrenched assumptions, the values of the modern Australian Chinese community do not necessarily align with those of the political Left. By Gladys Liu.

This Friday (12 February) is Chinese New Year – a day of celebration for the more-than 1.2 million Australians self-identifying as having Chinese ancestry, as well as one of the many yearly markers of Australia’s success as a haven for multicultural communities.

By the measure of the last census, those claiming Chinese ancestry were the fifth largest self-identifying ethnic group in Australia at 3.9% of the population. For perspective: those claiming English heritage are first with 25%.

While traditionally in the public mind ethnic minorities are naturally assumed to line up with the left-wing party, this is not necessarily so with the modern Australian Chinese community.

William Bowe, writing in 2019 for the left-wing news site Crikey, made the following observation: “Increasingly … the rise of China’s middle class is bringing affluent new arrivals with economic priorities to match, together with a measure of cultural resistance to the broader community’s progressive turn on sex and gender issues.”

There is a lot of truth in that observation, notwithstanding the implicitly ‘progressive’ slant of its viewpoint.

However, working for the Liberal Party’s election in Chisholm in 2016 and 2019 – first as a grassroots organiser, then as a candidate – I can tell you that it isn’t just new arrivals from China who see their future inextricably linked to the success of liberal values and their chief electoral exponent: the Liberal Party.

Make no mistake – there is no compromise on core liberal principles: individual responsibility; equal and impartial treatment before the law; freedom of association and communication. But of all the political orders possible it is the classically liberal order that allows individuals and their local communities and faith-groups to not only survive but thrive.

It is this universality of approach that is appealing to a great many Chinese-heritage voters. The Liberal Party is the party of individual rights, while the Labor Party is the party of group benefits and (increasingly) fringe ideologies. A great many in the Chinese community value thrift and hard work. And as an often over-achieving minority group, they are unlikely to be on the receiving end of large welfare payments or special treatment from the Labor or Greens parties.

The Labor Party is always trying to game elections for their latest identity group coalition by handing out targeted benefits and preferences. The Liberal Party prefers a ‘leave us alone’ coalition for the quiet, everyday Australians.

Most Chinese voters – like many other Australian voters who value their distinctive heritage while loving Australia’s freedoms – don’t want one group elevated at the expense of another, nor some ideological agenda thrust down their children’s throats. What they want is: competent government; the kind of social cohesion that can only come from impartial rules; fiscal prudence; and a willingness to let individuals and community-level associations run their own lives, run their own businesses, and raise their own children free from top-down government intervention in their lives.

The more we communicate with the Chinese Australian community the more they will back liberal values and the Liberal Party.

Gladys Liu is the federal member for Chisholm.