 We are here on Gadigal land, so I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Gadigal people of your nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. It's my pleasure to be here today to launch the third Being Chinese in Australia poll. It's the it's a public opinion survey of Chinese communities and their attitudes to the world and to Australia. This project was developed and written by my colleague, Dr. Jennifer Su, the Lowy Institute's director of multiculturalism, identity and influence project. Fieldworks of the project took place between September and December 2022. It's a nationally representative survey, a sample of 1,200 people who self-identified as having Chinese heritage. Now there are 1.4 million people with Chinese ancestry living in Australia, that represents about 5.5% of the total population. The context over the existence of this survey for the last three years has of course been a turbulent one. We've seen the COVID-19 pandemic and varying restrictions in both Australia and China. We've seen a deterioration in the Australia-China relationship and a recent bore in relations. Foreign interference laws have been implemented in Australia. Geopolitical tensions in the region have been on the rise and public awareness of media disinformation and data privacy have increased. Against this backdrop, this poll asks Chinese Australians about three broad themes. How do Chinese Australians see Australia and their place in it? How do they consume news and information and how do they view the wider world? My panelists today are on my left, Dr. Jennifer Su, author of the report. Jennifer obtained her PhD in Development Studies at Cambridge University. She's, as I said before, the Lowy Institute's multiculturalism, identity and influence project director and a senior visiting fellow at the UNSW's Social Policy and Research Centre. Samuel Yang is the host of ABC TV's China Tonight. He has previously worked as a business reporter in Sydney and Melbourne. Sam was nominated for Young Journalist of the Year in 2020 and is the winner of the Premier's Multicultural Communications Public Interest Award. And Lucy Du is the CEO of the Australia-China Young Professionals Initiative. She's also the head of community at a global private investment firm and was previously the manager of public diplomacy at the Australian Consulate in Shanghai. All of our panelists tonight have Chinese heritage and I'll ask them to speak briefly to that in a moment. But before I do, I'd like to open the discussion with Jennifer Su. Jennifer, congratulations on this report, this interesting piece of work and contribution to the national debate. I'd like to ask you why this project started, why it exists, and what do you think it adds to the national conversation? Good evening, everyone. Really delighted to see you all here. The genesis of the research project is cast your mind back to, say, six or seven years ago when the foreign interference debate was red and hot. There were a lot of discussions, but a lot of anecdotes as well. And so the genesis of the project, I would have to attribute that to Natasha Kasem, my former colleague. And the aim of the project is really to insert data points into the debate. And it is our hope that the survey report of the last three years allows us to do that, surveying sentiments of Chinese Australians on a range of issues which Ryan has mentioned. And I just want to acknowledge that this is a collective effort and I want to say thank you to my colleagues, Claire, Ian, Anthony, Sam, and everyone here at the Lowe Institute for making this report happen. Thank you. Thanks, Jen. And can you also tell us a bit about who you polled and thinking behind that? So we surveyed 1,200 people of Chinese ancestry who self-identified, but also based on Australian Bureau of Statistics census data based on country of birth, first and second ancestry, parents' country of birth as well. On one of the key themes of this report on identity and belonging, it's clear that there is a growing sense of belonging in the Chinese-Australian community. Three quarters in the most recent report felt a great or moderate sense of belonging to Australia, which is an increase in 11 points from 2021. A smaller majority, 66% report a sense of belonging to the Chinese people and a bare majority report a sense of belonging to China. Now, obviously, there's an overlap between people's sense of belonging to different groups and how are they identified. I think it'd be good to start with asking each panelist to say how you describe yourself, what does Chinese identity mean to you, and where do you feel you belong? Samuel, can I start with you? Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. I identify myself as a Chinese-Australian, but that hasn't always been the case because when I first came here as an international student, I was more of a Chinese, but when I became Australian citizen, I feel very proud of that and also identify myself as a Chinese-Australian. I think the citizenship would gave me, it actually gave me the sense of belonging to this country, to the society, especially to the Chinese-Australian community. That's why I identify myself in this way. Thank you. Jennifer? Yeah, this question about identity is one that always gets people talking, and I feel like this is a question that we can go over many times, and identity is a fluid thing. I would say for me, it's complicated. It's always complicated. I mean, to keep it brief, I'd say I'm Chinese-Taiwanese-Australian living in Sydney. I love Sydney, and I think that's a mark of who I am. And the last one will be Lucy. Lucy, too. I think I feel very similar sentiments. Hi, everybody, and it's great to be here. It's so nice to see so many people being a part of this conversation. I think my identity changes on almost a daily basis, based on what I do, who I'm talking to, how I feel about the current state of affairs between Australia and China. I was born in China. I came here when I was five. So I think I have a pretty unique upbringing. My parents and I moved to an area in Melbourne, which is very multicultural, but not Chinese. So I was probably the only Asian at school. And some of you might know my story that I begged my parents to pack me ham and cheese sandwiches to school. But at the same time, I grew up speaking Chinese at home, really being very connected and having very traditional parents. So that kind of, for me, growing up, it was in the 90s. Being Australian was probably very important. And I didn't know enough about my heritage to really say that I'm Chinese. And it wasn't until I moved to Shanghai in 2014, learned a lot more about my culture, about my ancestry, improved my language skills. But I think, you know, for myself, I feel a lot more comfortable identifying as Chinese Australian and being Asian Australian, and also reflecting in the last probably five years in Australia, there's a lot more advocacy and empowering of Asian Australians. And I think, you know, overall, I see not just myself, but with others, a bit more confidence in identifying being Australian, but in a Chinese context. Interesting. Thank you all for sharing. On the issue of racism, this has come up in previous years in the poll. What we've actually seen is downward trend this year. Fewer Chinese Australians reported being called offensive names or being physically threatened or attacked because of their heritage than previous years. Jennifer Su, do you see a link between the rising sense of belonging and decreasing incidences of racism or reported incidences of racism? Yeah, so I think this is a positive finding that it has decreased in the past year. And part of this, I think we can sort of bring the broader context, the national context and sort of the broader regional context. First is that over the past year, we in Australia have moved away from COVID lockdowns in a, I guess what you could say, fairly ordered manner. But at the same time, elsewhere, China, there was still continuing lockdowns. So as Australia opened up, as greater mobility was allowed for us to move in between states, between suburbs, there was a greater sense of connection to place to your community and also allowing freedom of travel to see friends, family allowed us. And I think this is one of the things that came up in our focus groups this past year with Chinese Australians, that sense of being able to reconnect with nation, with state, with community, having gone through lockdown. So I think those things have probably gives context to this statistic. But it's still a one that we should be working towards lowering. Thank you. And on that, Samuel Yang, could I ask, do you see this reflecting the Australian community with live being more tolerant? I'm actually so happy to see this finding because during the pandemic, I've done, I think I've done way too many stories about racism or people reported have been targeted during the pandemic, especially at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the ABC did a national investigation looking to the COVID related to racism. And we've received, I was part of that project and we received hundreds of responses from our readers across the country, saying that they have either witnessed or experienced racism against the Chinese Australian or the Asian community. I think a sense of belonging is so important, especially when it comes to migrants or the migrant community. And this is our new home, we need to feel that we are safe to be here, we have a role to play. And I think this, yeah, so I think this finding is the new findings is fabulous. And so, so, so happy to see people are feeling more belong to Australia. Can I ask a question, even though I should be answering your questions? Just people in the room, I'm curious, how would you answer the question? As in, if can I get a show of hands of who the Chinese Australians in the room, if you were racially threatened or attacked anyone out of curiosity? Okay. There's a few there. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. And also, you're putting them on the spot. Yes. It's not everyone is willing to share. It's very personal. And I really appreciate people who came to the media to share their stories because those are powerful stories and that reminds us we can do better as a society. Yeah. So it's obviously still an issue, encouraging, though it is to see the trend line decreasing. One of the clearest findings of the survey is also that nine out of 10 Chinese Australians see Australia as a favourable. That's a good or very good place to live, which has increased by 15 points since 2020. Lucy Du, can I ask you how do you think the last three years, noting that we've had a global pandemic and COVID lockdowns in China, in Australia and then easing at various times? How has that affected perceptions of how Chinese Australians might have seen Australia as a place to live? So I came back to Australia at the start of 2020. So I missed the China lockdowns, but I was part of the Melbourne lockdowns, both the Melbourne lockdown. So you can feel sorry for me. But having just returned from Shanghai yesterday, I spoke with a lot of my friends, my former colleagues, both Chinese and expats on their lived experiences. I'm sure we've heard a lot in the news. I'm sure many of you do have friends and acquaintances in Shanghai who you spoke to. And it was very confronting to hear, I guess, firsthand for me. And that really put into context the findings that the majority of Chinese Australians do see Australia as favourable. Some examples of what my friends told me about what happened in Shanghai, inconsistencies in getting food from the authorities, legitimately starving. This is not a lie, but at the same time, others who had an overabundance of food being provided by their local authorities, including avalone and beer. So not everyone is necessarily treated equal. There's a lot of disparities in terms of how social distancing is implemented. Had a story of a friend who said, in their compound, there were a lot of cases and they found out it was because their elderly people, residents in their neighbourhood, had been getting up in the morning at 5am before the neighbourhood watch committee were doing their patrols and having a chat and mingling and not social distancing and, as a result, spreading COVID. And things that I'm sure you all know about changing policies with how close contacts are treated. So I think a lot of those stories that many Chinese Australians hear, hear, and know from their friends and family has, as a result, reflected on what the lockdowns were like in Australia, which in Melbourne it was hard, but it was nowhere as comparable to, I think, a lot of the experiences that people in China had. So obviously a hard time to be living in China during those restrictions. But Jennifer, is there an issue in terms of timing here and when the poll was taken and the sequencing of when restrictions were lifted in China vis-à-vis Australia? Yeah, so the poll, as Ryan mentioned, at the beginning was in field between September to December last year. And so around that time, you know, in April last year, you might have seen the voices of Shanghai or the voices of spring, that video that was, you know, replayed millions of times. You hear the distress of Shanghai names living under lockdown and then subsequently there were other lockdowns that Chinese cities went through. And then at the end of October last year, November, there was protests and discontent in major cities across China, starting off in Xinjiang. And so, and those were discontent and protests about the state of lockdown. People were getting frustrated. People were getting tired, being locked up for weeks on end. And so all that, all that filtered through the international media and, you know, those are the things that we read last year about China. So I think if you read both English and Chinese, you would have been exposed to these stories. And at the time of field work, you know, there were discontent, there were protests happening in China. So I think the context of what was happening in China at that time gives some understanding to these sentiments that you see in the report about sense of belonging and pride, seeing Australia as a favorable place to live. Moving to media and information consumption habits. When it comes to social media, YouTube, then Facebook, then WeChat are the most popular social media platforms for respondents to the survey. Most Chinese Australians get their Chinese and English language news from WeChat, although that is declining in number, but around half doubt its fairness or and accuracy. Samuel Young, as a media professional, could I ask what does this tell you about how Chinese Australians interpret the world and what is the significance of those platforms? I guess there is a there is an important context of this, which is who we've surveyed. And I think Jennifer mentioned previously to me that we have people from where the Australian citizenship or people from temporary visas or that includes tourists or sorry, international students. So a lot of migrants coming from China, they have this habit of using WeChat. Lucy can absolutely agree with that and you can tell us more about that. But a lot of migrants, Chinese, especially Chinese migrants, they are conditioned to use WeChat as the primary source of information and it has a huge impact on how they perceive the world and how they understand the world. I think in Australia there is a vacuum of Chinese language content and although we know SPS and the ABC both have digital Chinese language content platforms, but that's not enough for new migrants or existing migrants to to to get their information from. I think there is room for improvements in Australia to provide a better platform for Chinese language speak Chinese speakers who are relying on Chinese content to get the information, especially for example in the past two years, the public health information or information about both the political conflicts or other trade matters. I think there is a huge, it tells us that there is a huge gap in the in how Australians, Australian media outlets and provide in terms of the information in terms of the content and also that I would say it's a largely untapped market or audience that we need to serve, especially for the national broadcasters and also for even for commercial channels outlets. There are lots of stories in the community and a lot of interesting talent to interview and also it's healthy that we see them on television and programs on TV screens or on our daily newspapers because it's a reflection makeup of our society and now we have 1.4 million Australians living here with Chinese heritage and that's very important that we also reflect that in our daily conversation in our news reporting and I'm so glad to see that a lot of media outlets these days they hire people with that kind of with Chinese background when it comes to covering China or when it comes to covering the bilateral relationship between the two countries or cultural issues and social affairs issues because they bring the expertise, they bring the lived experience, the nuance into our coverage. Of course you're a testament to that. When it comes to confidence in Australia, in the Australian media and how it reports on China, this has improved over time but there's still a divide between those who see it as too negative versus those who see it as fair and balanced. Lucy, there's, in terms of the confidence improving, how do you view Australian media coverage on China and does it make sense to you that there's this trend line of increasing confidence in Australian media reporting? Yeah, before I get to that I just want to comment on what Sam said. His reference was us in the back and me saying that after living in Shanghai for six years, I got put off using YouTube and Facebook. I have no interest in using it anymore because I didn't have access to it and now I'm all on Instagram and WeChat and the WeChat ecosystem is incredible. So for not just news but for business, everything is in that ecosystem which is why it's not a surprising result that everyone is reading news and sharing news because it's the biggest platform. You can do everything on it which I'm sure most of you know and WeChat has huge teams that help create mini-programs, work with global clients to basically keep everybody like how LinkedIn wants you to keep using LinkedIn. So that's why I think it's a hugely untapped market and for both Australian broadcasters, government, commercial businesses, it's really important to understand how to best use it to reach a much larger untapped market in Australia. Yeah, I think the number I saw recently that's 690,000 daily users in Australia. So that's a huge audience that we need to capture. Absolutely. And on your question about Australian media coverage, I haven't been in Australia for the last two weeks or I haven't had a lot of access to Australian news. So this morning I actually went and purchased a copy of the newspaper which by the way is really expensive. It's been a while since I purchased a paper and this is the Daily Tally. So take everything with a grain of salt but in their world section they had the headline Chinese secret police station harassing US dissidents which I think often you see in not just the Daily Tally graph but I find often when the media uses Chinese instead of China's secret police it does conflate the association of being Chinese from a heritage perspective, from a family perspective to being linked with the CCP or anything that's government related and that does detract previously maybe less so now as people have a much better understanding of the differences of feeling like you can identify being with Chinese because that's just your genetics rather than which political party you adhere to. I think one of the things this report does that shows the diversity of views in the Chinese Australian community of course it's not synonymous with the CCP and the Chinese people. They're separate things and different viewpoints on a range of issues. Do you have something else? Yeah I just want to say I think that's a really important point that Lucy mentioned because often I see that a lot of Australian coverage on China is way too simplistic. So we need to, there's a nuance between the state, the party state, China, Chinese, and Chinese Australian or the CCP so I think there's definitely room to improve that's why I think nuanced approach when it comes to China coverage is so important especially in the context of that we are more and more intertwined as nations, as people and it's and also with the change of the government I think that kind of conversation is definitely much needed. And I also just say that the statistic you brought up Ryan that so this year what we found was Chinese Australians are evenly split between believing Australian media reporting about China is too negative. Four out of ten Chinese Australians think it's too negative and the other four out of ten think it's very unbalanced. And so I think so you might scratch your head and go what shouldn't the split be between too negative and too too positive but it is what it is but I think it does tell us that there is a diversity of opinions about how we view China even within the Chinese Australian communities. There are a variety of perspectives so if you're from Hong Kong you might see China in a very different light compared to someone having been born and lived in China most of their lives and then come here as a student or as a worker. So I think the statistics does give you sort of a flavour of the diversity within the community. Could I just stay with you Jennifer on the issue of misinformation we've seen this become quite prominent in recent years and your survey looked at how Chinese Australians recognise and identify misinformation. Could you speak to the finding there and what are Chinese Australians becoming more aware of the risks of misinformation? Yeah so this year you know roughly two-thirds of Chinese Australians are confident somewhat confident in identifying made-up views or fake news. You can take that with a grain of salt it's self-reporting but I think that's you know that's a good number but at the same time you have to think you know what about the other third who are who aren't confident. What are we doing in that space and trying to build their resilience in you know weathering sort of misinformation that might come their way through a variety of platforms not just WeChat but it could be YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. Sam do you want to add anything else on that as a producer of news yourself? In terms of misinformation and awareness, perceptions of that? I think a lot of misinformation or disinformation can come from social media and especially if we have such a huge number of audience consuming platforms like WeChat which is a highly censored platform and also full of misinformation at times and so I think that can definitely contribute to how people understand the world and how people perceive the daily topics that we have when it comes to misinformation or discrimination. That's a good segue to the next major theme of this report which is how the Chinese Australian community perceive world affairs. Now there's a striking gap in perceptions, threat perceptions between that of the Australian Chinese community and that of the broader Australian community. A few findings I think are worth stating here to illustrate that the clear majority of Chinese Australians say that they trust China to act responsibly in the world compared to only 12% of the broader Australian population who say the same. 42% of that community had the Chinese Australian community had faith in President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs that's declining but it's still four times higher than the broader population and a clear majority see China as an economic partner rather than a security threat which is the other way around when we poll the broader Australian population. So that speaks to a certainly a lower level of threat perception amongst the Chinese Australian community when it comes to China. Jennifer how do you explain that gap between the two, that segment and the broader community? Yes so on a number of these questions related to geopolitics, world affairs there is that significant gap between the Chinese Australian population and that of the broader Australian population whether it is about you know how we see China, whether it's an economic partner or a security threat or Russia-Ukraine war, concern about China potentially opening up a military base in the Pacific there's just generally lower threat perception levels amongst Chinese Australian communities and I think we can start off by thinking you know this figure 45% of Chinese Australians were born in China so they have a very intimate engagement interaction with China whether that is being born in China or whether they have family, friends, living in China or still in China so that's one way of sort of contextualizing that result but also it is likely that many Chinese Australians have bilingual capabilities if not trilingual so being able to speak Mandarin understand Chinese allows you to engage with different media outlets not just in English but also in Chinese so if you're able to consume news and hear news in a different language it also gives you a different perspective on world affairs so and I think that I think that may explain sort of the the gap between the broader Australian population and Chinese Australian population is that perhaps the broader Australian population their consumption of news related to China is perhaps in English whereas for Chinese Australians it could be English Chinese and if they speak a third language maybe not third language but I think sort of those demographics give you some indications as to why there might be that difference between the two population groups. Sam can I ask you to come in on the media consumption point I mean how does that influence the perceptions of threat levels and views of the world? I think Australian media coverage on China is largely focused on the geopolitical or bilateral tensions and the trade wars between the two countries and foreign interference in Australia from the government or from the government agents here in Australia and those are very important and issues that we definitely need to cover and to report on those matters to inform the Australian audiences or the public but at the same time I think I have seen little media coverage on China as a nation and its people and culture I think that's very important to also bring that into the dialogue bring that into our understanding about China as a country as our largest trading partner and as this superpower in our region in the Asia Pacific so I think what what I do with EBC with China tonight is to bring that kind of human aspect into the conversation through the public eyes so we understand important issues also important issues in China and especially given that we don't we don't have the access to to China from Australian media outlets so we don't have that kind of first account perspective or first-hand reporting for the Australian public to understand this country and the ins and outs of the society or the government or the party I think that's also very very important to improve our capability in understanding China. Can I also just add you know for us here in Australia everything is pretty much everything is China adjacent right when we read world news China is always the top of the headlines and Lucy might speak to this being that you were in Shanghai recently that while everything might be China adjacent for us it's not necessarily the other way around no one cares about Australia that's probably the bottom line in China that's off record um yeah so the concern for Chinese in China is not necessarily Australia but the US right absolutely and so if we read here in Australia every day about China there is that's we're going to absorb that and internalize it whereas I don't think you know for for China it's more Chinese people or I've seen this as a yeah I think to your comment about you know being able to have multiple sources you know in Chinese language as well you kind of realize that the reporting that Australia does related to China in reverse I don't think it's proportionate I don't think China reports equally um as much um about Australia and I think you're going to your point Sam there should be more stories about you know the economic partnership which is there I think you know people don't write about it because maybe doesn't sell the newspapers as much or people don't like to talk about it because they don't want it to impact on business they just want to do it you know because of the kind of issues with you know being associated with the bilateral tensions but being able to tell those stories through multiple channels including in Australian media I think is really important so touched on the issue there of though the sources of information that get consumed and perhaps different focuses depending on which channels you're accessing Jennifer is there also a age differential here when it comes to threat perceptions particularly with China yeah I mean I think um the for Chinese Australians who are sort of younger 18 to say 44 if that's young then so be it I think there's just and those are those people in that age category are here having perhaps studied here as an international student and then stayed on as worker or here as on a working visa so I think that that age group generally with sort of strong connection to China will tend to have lower threat perception levels of China just because of their immediacy to to China to their family in China to friends in China yeah and also having gone through the education system in China you know that it does shape one's thinking in in and worldview in a certain way now we focus a lot on the gap in the threat perceptions but also this the report goes into a bit of detail about the the perception of democracy and whether that's preferable to any other form of government Australia is also seen as the most trusted country out of those polls at more so than China and Anthony Albanese is seen as the most trusted leader globally so there's there's a few interesting things that we haven't had the time to touch on maybe it's something that people want to throw questions to the panel about we've got about 20 or so minutes I'm sure there are lots of questions I know we have media in the room as well and you might want to address some of the points made by the panel here can I ask when you to firstly wait for the microphone identifying yourself and your affiliation and please keep it to one brief question please raise your hands if you if you have a question Peter Hatcher thanks Ryan thanks to the panel very interesting discussion Peter Hatcher in the Sydney Morning Herald your very last point Ryan about the level of trust in Anthony Albanese Albanese government which is obviously a lot higher among the Chinese Australian community in the Morrison government I wonder how much of that is bound up in the person of Penny Wong I wonder whether any of the improvement in sense of belonging sense of trust in the Chinese Australian community is related to seeing the most senior political office holder female office holder in the country as a well not Chinese Australian she identifies as Malaysian Chinese Australian how much of it is is related to her do you have a view on that please I should point out when we we've been using the term Chinese Australian as shorthand for a variety of different ways people characterise themselves through this survey but Jennifer do you want to take that one yeah I mean I can't answer specifically about whether Penny Wong has had an impact but I will draw upon our focus groups discussions in that people have said you know the change in government has led to a change in language and tone and for that you know a lot of the focus group discussions with Chinese Australians with different identities see that as important they welcome that change it may not necessarily lead to policy shifts but I think that language and tone matters and it then filters through to other aspects of one's daily life your experience you know with racism or declining experience with racism so you know people do do note people who are culturally and linguistically different in positions of power and that has come up in discussions yes Yes you do yeah I think so I agree with you personally I think you know having someone at least for the Chinese Australian community that they see as being similar and represents them right in Australia that's quite important and of course you know the comparison you know the contrast between the previous government to you know the current government has changed the tone significantly um but I definitely would agree with that comment Sam do you think language and tone has moved the need on us? Definitely um especially from the the business community in Australia who do business or trade with China from here in Australia or in Sydney or Melbourne people I've spoken to um in in wine business or in other parts of the business sector they did they did welcome the the change in government and it seems to be more hopeful for the for the trade relationship with China. Hello Peter Hanum from the Guardian I just wondered given if there's about 45 percent of population of Chinese Australians being born in mainland China or China I suppose like could Hong Kong these days with the data you have were you able to kind of cross reference for example people who got the information from line in Taiwan or or answered with complicated characters uh did that did you were able to kind of identify perhaps you know who was a mainlander a Southeast Asian origin or Hong Kong Taiwan and therefore what were their kind of responses to like for instance supporting China or the US in case of military conflict? Yeah I mean yes we can pick apart that um that data but but I can't tell you specifically about conflict based on sort of off the top of my head but I will say um this is one thing I was looking into is that um those born in Hong Kong are more frequent users of YouTube than those born in mainland China um in the 76 percent of those born in China are frequent daily users of WeChat compared to say other people with Chinese heritage born in Hong Kong so yes we do have that data and I'm happy to discuss more in depth after yeah. Sorry can we jump in? Yeah please. I think Peter raised a really important context in this conversation is that the Chinese Australian community is not monolithic it's so diverse people speak so many different languages and coming from different parts of the world with different regions of countries or birth um and that's absolutely very very important for us to understand that different if you people might have different views if you're from mainland China or from Taiwan you're from the Southeast Asia, Thailand or Myanmar there's so many different the way when it comes to traditions and how they celebrate their cultures are different and they have of course they have different views on the Chinese government or China or China as a nation so yeah I think that's that's a very important context. Is there a question down the front here? Mikaela Louie? Mikaela Louie from the Louie Institute. I just wanted to ask growing up as a second generation Chinese Australian the topic of racism and indeed identity was never really discussed in my household or even really anywhere else how do you think this survey contributes to that discussion and who's participating in it and what other factors do you think contribute to that topic in Australia today? Lucy do you want to start with that? Sure um I think it's interesting I'm curious to know how many second gen Australians I'm often torn personally between if I'm first gen or second gen I think there's a new term for 1.5 gen which is perfect um I think often you know that sense of belonging and where you identify is just quite complicated and hopefully you know some of the report draws out you know a much more diverse um range of viewpoints from the broader Chinese Australian community that helps the second gen I guess find some alignment and find some similarities in terms of how they feel towards certain issues and how they can connect. Yeah I think I identify as the 1.5 gen um but yeah I you know sort of on a personal note issues of discrimination and racism was never talked about while we were growing up and it was only until my brother and I became sort of adults you know over dinner that we heard about my parents experiences with racism I think as a parent there's a tendency to want to shield your children um to cocoon them from this experience which is fine but I think on the other hand there is a need for the broader public to acknowledge that these um incidents do happen but when it comes to sort of the survey and um sort of thinking just a little bit beyond the question is that there are gaps between how Chinese Australians view the world and that of the Australian population which I think is fine and you know conversation with Coley here reminded me that it's not necessarily about closing the gap it's about acknowledging the difference and how can we use that difference to inform policymaking. Did you want to answer any other questions? Hi thanks my name is Christina Ho I'm from the University of Technology Sydney um I wanted to look at the question of the reliance on WeChat by a lot of the Chinese Australians in your study and I think um someone mentioned that there is a sense of distrust that people are aware that there is misinformation although there is such heavy reliance on WeChat so I'm wondering maybe in the focus groups if it ever came up did you get a sense that any Chinese Australians have any strategies for critically evaluating what they're seeing on WeChat um or how do they make sense of that you know sort of sense of uh mistrustworthiness um but yet so being so reliant on WeChat. Yeah I think um sometimes in the broader conversation about WeChat, TikTok and other social media platforms that are you know under the spotlight we underestimate users ability to triangulate their information and this is something that came up in the focus groups people are wary but it is an important source of information for lifestyle information for shopping, for getting the latest deals at Aldi, finding out about the latest deals from Aldi, Woolworths, Poles, etc. This is an important part of the WeChat ecosystem but it doesn't mean that they don't triangulate that information that they get when it comes to sort of news items. People do um the longer they have lived in Australia um the more likely they're going to exit and use other platforms to get their news and information so I think people do have a variety of strategies to triangulate that information that they get they read in Chinese they read in English they use um channel nine news um but they also read ABC news um and those working in the ABC will be glad to know that ABC and SBS are you know highly trusted platforms but there was also some doubt um so I think uh yeah people do we underestimate users ability to triangulate their information even though they might be frequent users of WeChat. I think on that I can't see you there you are um in the same way that in Australia we kind of have a sense right of what each of the news outlets and their kind of tone and their bias I feel like um for Chinese language or Chinese Australians and this is you know kind of chatting to a friend who lives in in Shenzhen you know the Chinese and I'm sure it's similar to a lot of the the survey respondents they spend years curating their news sources right you read a news article you realize it's fake you make a note that you don't follow the account anymore that it's you know somewhat suspicious and you know you kind of build up this um you know robust repository that you create amongst your you know your friends I think that's you know exactly how that strategy comes about I'm not sure but it takes from what I understand um a lot of time because there's a lot more diversity in news sources um in China and in Chinese language news sources and again you know with WeChat anyone can write a WeChat article post it on a WeChat account and say it's an official something um and I think it's a point and point that we don't conflate frequency of use with reliance on so the findings look at the amount that these platforms are used and they do use multiple platforms any other questions on the floor Simon Chen president of Chinese Australian forum it's a very interesting survey you did Jennifer so you should be congratulated on that I'm just curious to find out from all the results that you get from the survey what conclusion or outcome can you draw from that in terms of efficacy for Chinese Australian advocacy yeah um I'd say I mean definitely I'm feeling in its undercurrent of um not just Chinese Australians but the broader Asian Australian population being wanting to be heard and with the last federal election greater representation of Asian Australian parliamentarians was really important for a lot of people within my circle so I think I'm hoping that you know the survey adds data points to greater national security and foreign policy debates you know it's thinking through that there are a variety of sentiments and perspectives here um and they should be acknowledged and perhaps accounted for but at the same time sort of on the more community social level um perhaps the survey may allow um those in the communities to start engaging to start thinking through how could these data points assist us in greater advocacy whether it be you know local election uh standing for local councillor um greater representation in the institutions which um shapes our lives gentlemen down the front here hi Chesney from the College of Surgeons great work Jennifer Bonoak so um when I'm working at the college we wanted to identify diversity within our fellowship but one of the problems that we have is that we don't want to homogenize particular groups so from your experience with your survey was there an expression of diversity and the risk of homogenizing the Chinese identity because there's many different types of Chinese people you know Singaporean Taiwanese mainland Hong Kong and politically down or CIDY or even socially economically but one of the biggest problems we have with the media sorry seminars is that they sometimes homogenize the Chinese identity which can contribute to discrimination um yes so um so if you engage with a report and see the interactive we do demographic breakdowns to show you that there is a diversity not just in where you were born but in age your political preferences your level of education those will contribute to one's identity and the community's identity but um I I totally share that you know the our use here of Chinese Australians is simply a for better or for worse is a shorthand to capture um you know what Ryan mentioned those people may identify Australian Chinese rather than Chinese Australian they might identify Australian or Chinese or none of the above right or like me where where do I put Chinese Taiwanese Australian Sydney Sider so yeah yes identity is complicated and this is not often something not picked up by by media in the reporting of communities related to to Chinese Australians time for one more question uh lady in the front thank you um I'm Sophie Liu I'm a director with the rhodium group um as a Chinese American living in Australia one aspect of your report that really struck me was the incredible differentiation and difference um in the opinions of the general um Aussie population around America versus the Chinese Aussie population from America so I'm going to bring up kind of the thousand pound pink elephant in the room in the sense that um one thing that struck me in my years living here is the amount of influence that America has in Australia um and so I guess what I'm kind of curious is driven by the winds of the prevailing um relationship between the US and China which is kind of the dominant relationship between those two countries if we were saying before that maybe Chinese media doesn't spend much time covering Australia but I'm sure that it's been a lot of time covering America um so in in this kind of like you know being buffeted around by these larger forces at play how do Chinese Aussies propose to carve out a path for themselves and then how does Australia propose to carve its path you know in terms of its relationship to to China I'm curious to hear like if there were any learnings from the study or you know any just opinions from the panelists around on that issue um I think just from a very kind of grassroots level it's just for more Australians to get a better understanding of being Chinese China you know the multiple identities of being Chinese Australian you know covering from Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and then even within China as well I mean I'm sure you would know that you know between Beijing and Shanghai there's a lot of differences and then you go down south so you know from my perspective and what we want to do with you know acypi is to build that connection between individuals to learn from each other and to foster that understanding at the people level and hopefully and I think that's a great starting point in terms of building at a much more rounded understanding of how Australia can position ourselves in the context of China and the US and you know the economic partnership is really important I think often very much understated and under-reported and you know celebrated really in Australia to hope you can do more of. Sam did you want to come in on that? Oh I think I think grassroots for like an exchange or fellowship between the two countries that's so important and especially we haven't seen that happening for a while or less yeah it's been hard we all know why but I think hopefully I will see more that kind of exchange or dialogue happening between two countries and Jennifer can I yeah I'm less optimistic I think there are insoluble differences given that Australia's relies so much on on China's development for Australia's prosperity but now we're seeing sort of greater engagement and tethering of Australia's national security and defence interests with the US and as the as the two powers rival each other it leaves Australia in a difficult position and it's it's not one that is going to be easily solved and can you have your cake and eat it too is the question I thought for Chinese Australians I think there's a real practical perspective and that is to see the trade side of it to see the economic partnership whether that means at the expense of other things I'm not sure but I think there are the larger picture is one of complexity and requires policymakers to think about these issues but yeah I think there are great differences that are really hard to resolve at this point in time there's a big questions there and we've covered a lot of ground this evening if you would like to and I would encourage you to delve into the the findings in a bit more detail as Jennifer mentioned you can actually look at historical data over the life of this survey's existence as well as different variables and demographics and you can you can explore how that affects different responses that's all online the Low Institute website we you're welcome to join us here for a drink after this but for now I'd like to again congratulate Jennifer Su on on the third iteration of the Being Chinese in Australia report it's a it's a fascinating piece of research and obviously will has stoked a lot of debate and will continue to be debating those points over the years also thank you to Samuel Young and Lucy do for your contributions on the panel and to the audience here for your for your questions and your interests I'll also acknowledge the Department of Home Affairs which contributed to funding this research and I once again thank you to everybody and we look forward to continuing this discussion and thank you Ryan