'Huaqiao': Narratives and political alliances of urban Chinese-Australian communities in the early twentieth century

This article examines narratives of 'Huaqiao' in Australia to trace how identity was preserved through new political alliances and nationalism. It argues that urbanization, the White Australia policy, and Chinese nationalism all constributed to Chinese-Australian identity in the early twentieth century. For Chinese-Australians, the term 'Huaqiao' was adopted following the growth in hostility towards Chinese around 1904 and 1905. Urban Chinese specifically adopted the term 'Huaqiao' as a self-reflexive label that located them in an international Chinese diasporic network, and at the same time offered a vantage point for pressing particular national claims in Australia. Chinese-language newspapers introduced styles of rhetoric and narrative that fed directly into processes of social mobilization and identity transformation under way in Federation Australia. Mobilizing in the name of the Chinese 'Huaqiao' diaspora began to make sense as an alternative form of community politics and cultural nationalism after 1909. Politics provided a compelling language for imagining Chinese-Australian social networks, identities, and imageries, and for wider dreams of dignity, peace, and prosperity. Political rhetoric and narratives thus contributed to the uniting of Chinese-Australians. The alliance of the 'Young China League' in 1911 on the eve of the Xinhai Revolution demonstrated that a consciouness of modernity and Australian experiences was constituting the historical consciousness of Chinese-Australians. This article thus shows that Chinese-Australian identity in the White-Australian period was more than merely a refinement of native kinship practices and inherited identities. The style of Chinese-Australian nationalism proclaimed in the local Chinese press was rooted in new historical narratives and modern models of political community