Can I withstand CCP?

News Analysis

Recent federal elections have fluctuated significantly in the Central Left Labour Party in voters with China and Australia’s major populations.

This includes Menzies’ Melbourne seats and Morton’s Chisholm, Benennon, Reed and Banks’ Sydney seats.

In Bennolon’s northern Sydney seat, including Chatwood and Eastwood’s suburbs, 40% of residents are Chinese heritage, so many MPs Jerome Laxar won a swing of 9.2% after Liberal candidate Scott Yun’s preference for Chinese ancestor Scott Yun. About 90.9% of votes are counted for that seat.

But in a deeper investigation, some candidates like Menzies liberal Keith Wallahan actually saw a major vote held, which could be attributed to his strong Chinese social media presence.

However, one conclusion was that China-Australian voters were concerned about the state of official connections between Canberra and Beijing, and the subtext that they could call the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for human rights violations or military attacks could undermine relations, resulting in votes winning cost votes.

It is also a view shared by the 2022 Liberal Party internal review.

Liberals remained quietly about policies that could resonate with Chinese voters

Some argue that the results should be viewed more comprehensively.

“Many Chinese people, especially those who have already become citizens here, are actually very aware of the value of Australia,” said Feng Chung-gi, an associate professor of Chinese studies at Sydney Institute of Technology, in an interview with the Epoch Times.

“But (the previous) Liberal leader (Peter Dutton’s campaign) was too weak. He tried to please everyone and offered no real alternatives.”

He said the entire coalition campaign was “very passive” and failed to support conservative agendas such as freedom of speech and religion, small government, pro-policy, production and inverse zero.

Feng also pointed out that Dutton’s inability to train the party’s moderate faction destroyed his campaign. In other words, the Liberal Party did not promote policies that normally resonated with Chinese Asians.

This also allowed the alternative message to be run for free. This commented on Chinese social media platforms such as Renote and WeChat that liberal Sen. Jane Hume gave away vote cards for Labour MPs on comments about “Chinese spies.”

National Security Discussions are not being worked hard enough: Professor

The professor also said the Liberal Party did not emphasize the importance of Australia’s national security.

“The liberals were supposed to show that if they came to power, national security would prioritize and would not benefit from unfair means (through their dealings with the CCP),” Feng said.

“In fact, over the years, the Australian public is already well aware of the malicious nature of China’s communist regime and the threat it poses to Australia.”

Feng has been critical of the change in tone from opposition leaders, and he has eased his hard-line stance to appease Chinese and Australian voters.

“Relations with China will be much stronger than the Albanese government,” Dutton said in January.

Both sides of politics used more restrained rhetoric in debating China, but the CCP had other ideas.

In March, three Chinese warships appeared along Australia’s east coast without prior notice, running weapons campaigns between Australia and New Zealand in international waters, circling most of Australia for two weeks, raising national security concerns.

Others say national security may not have been a major concern

Graham Young, executive director of the Australian Institute of Progress, said there is little value in easing it for the vote, noting this time that national security is not of great concern to voters.

“In this election, most voters weren’t adapting to this issue,” he told the Epoch Times via email.

Rowan Karik, an expert at the National College of Safety at Australia and an industry fellow at Griffith’s Asian Studies Institute, said there is no stern evidence enough to support the findings of the 2022 Liberal Party Review, which suggests that Chinese voters do not like the former Morrison government’s strict stance on the CCP.

“Many of this concern is anecdotal and sometimes assume that people of Chinese ethnicity are all or mostly from China,” he told Epoch era before the election.

Korik said despite a lack of empirical evidence, the party naturally linked Australia-China ties and the voting patterns of those voters and adopted a more “disciplined” approach to debate the Chinese administration.

“Therefore, we can understand the current response. However, this creates a distorted policy-making process regarding China relations.”

Royalty Factor

Qing Jin, a doctorate in social sciences and global chairman of the Australia-based Democratic China Federation, believes that old loyalty was a factor.

He said many older Chinese immigrants came after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and may have thanked the late Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawk, who has developed similar dynamics in Vietnamese communities.

Hawk approved 42,000 permanent visa visas for Chinese students in Australia at the time.

“We believe that many people in this group continue to be deeply grateful to Bob Hawk and Labour, and they certainly influenced this election,” Chin, the beneficiary of Hawk’s decision, told the Epoch Times.

Don’t be afraid to stand up to CCP

Meanwhile, FENG mentioned the 2022 Roy Institute study. This indicated that the CCP’s trade war with Australia failed during COVID-19.

Beijing has imposed trade barriers across several Australian exports, including lobster and wine, in retaliation for what the CCP called Australia’s “false government policy.”

“The myth that Australia’s economy depends on the Chinese market is exposed by facts. During the period of economic enforcement by the CCP administration, Australia’s exports were found because China relied on the supply of iron ore or metallurgical coal, and alternative markets were found for other commodities.

“That’s why liberals should absolutely speak up and say. We don’t need to rely on the Chinese regime. They simply cannot trust them. Even if you rely on them, they should use that dependency to blackmail you again.”