Page 128 - On Not Speaking Chinese Living Between Asia and the West

ASIANS IN AUSTRALIA

rather than exclude them because of the rise of Asian capitalism and the progressive
integration of Australia’s economy into the Asia-Pacific region. In this respect, the
radical symbolic shift from ‘White Australia’ to Australia as a ‘multicultural nation
in Asia’ (to use former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s famous phrase) was a matter
of realpolitik: in a postcolonial, globalized capitalist world cosmopolitanism – the
cultural habitus of ‘free trade’ – is not just more chic and sophisticated, but simply
more likely to enhance Australia’s economic well-being than xenophobia, arguably
the cultural appendix of ‘protectionism’.
But these pragmatic considerations, influenced strongly by changing global
conditions and geopolitical relations, had a profound impact not only on how
Australia saw its own place in the world (it finally had begun to recognize and
accept its geographical location), but also on whom it considered welcome within
its borders (that is, it finally relinquished its racially discriminatory immigration
policies). The fact that this was a dramatic sea change in the history of the young
nation cannot be overstated. This turnaround, which took place over the course
of the century, has been succinctly discussed by Freeman and Jupp (1992). I quote
them at length:

Precisely because it was small and relatively insignificant on the world
stage, Australia was able to maintain a racialist control policy until relatively
recently. Defended militarily by Britain and then the United States,
Australia’s geographical isolation was its real defence until World War II.
It could ignore its location in the Asian Pacific region because its
economic, political, and cultural ties were with Europe and North
America. White Australia was an embarrassment, but it caused few serious
consequences. [However] . . . [w]ith Britain’s entry into the European
community and the emergence of Asian capitalism, Australia has had to
rethink its position. One reason that is often advanced as a justification not
only for a non-discriminatory immigration policy, but also for a multi-
culturalism at home, is that it is an essential component of good trading
relations with rising Asian economic giants (Garnaut 1989). How far these
changes of attitude have gone to relax Australian policy is hard to say;
in their public utterances officials imply they have little choice given the
sensibilities of their Asian neighbours.
(Freeman and Jupp 1992: 18–19)

The overhaul of immigration law in the early 1970s represented a radical break in
the official national discourse, not just on who could now formally be included
in ‘the Australian people’, but also on the nation’s preferred self-image. As I have
already remarked in Chapter 5, the symbolic importance of this break for the
redefinition of the nation’s imagined community cannot be underestimated. It
was accompanied by the production of a new national narrative which tells the
reassuring story that Australia has now relinquished its racist past and embraced
a non-racist and non-racial national identity. As a result, the central importance of

117