Chinese in Australian Fiction, 1888–1988 By Ouyang Yu

An important year in the history of the Chinese in Australia, 1880 saw growing nationalism combine with fear that the Chinese threatened the Australian way of life, which made the Chinese question acutely felt by all.²⁷ To deal with the question, the First Intercolonial Conference convened in Sydney in November 1880, presided over by Sir Henry Parkes, then premier of New South Wales. It led to each colony, except Western Australia, passing its own law against Chinese immigration. Four years later, Western Australia passed the Imported Labourers’ Registry Act in response to the influx of the Chinese.²⁸ A second Intercolonial Conference convened in 1888 during a scare that Chinese immigration, encouraged and supported by the Chinese government, was motivated by the desire to found a colony in the north, far from white settlement.²⁹ The conference, held in secret, agreed upon a draft bill virtually prohibiting traditional Chinese immigration³⁰ and applying exclusive measures to all Chinese, whether British subjects or not, and irrespective of the 1860 Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Peking.³¹

Readers should note that at this stage the Chinese government began, for the first time in Chinese history, to pay serious attention to the welfare of its nationals abroad. As a result of the Second Opium War (1856–1860), the Qing government had granted permission for the emigration of its nationals abroad, reversing all its previous restrictions,³² thus beginning a new period in which government policy turned from restriction to protection.³³ Protection of Chinese nationals represented ‘the prime reason for the appointment’ of officials abroad.³⁴ Several events were significant. In 1868 China sent its first diplomatic mission, called the Burlingame Mission, to the United States, and, subsequently sent missions to other European countries, such as England, France, and Germany.³⁵ By 1874 the Chinese government had effectively brought the coolie emigration to an end.³⁶ It followed this with the establishment of a series of Chinese legations in European countries, as well as in Japan, for the protection of Chinese nationals there, starting in 1875.³⁷ Moreover, in 1886 a mission led by Chinese Commissioners Wang Yung-ho and Yu Chun left for Southeast Asia and Australia to investigate the general situation with regard to Chinese nationals there.³⁸