The Long Umbilical Cord: The role of race in China’s diaspora engagement in Australia

Abstract

Incidents in recent years that involve China exerting extra-territorial control over foreign citizens of Chinese descent, has given rise to two concerns: That Beijing is increasingly willing to insert itself into the domestic affairs of other jurisdictions and that the Communist Party leadership regards ethnic Chinese as within their own domain, regardless of citizenship. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Australia, where intelligence agencies have flagged a suspected widespread campaign by Beijing to assert influence over and through the country’s Chinese diaspora, and where several high-profile incidents involving Chinese-Australians in recent years has spurred Australia to revamp its anti-interference laws and in turn dialled up the tensions on the two country’s bilateral relations. This thesis explores whether China is indeed blurring the line between ethnicity and citizenship, by investigating whether racial definitions of Chineseness function as a tool for PRC diaspora mobilisation and hence as a channel for political influence in Australia.