Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurship in Australia from the 1990s: Case Studies of Success in Sino-Australian Relations

Chinese Migrant Entrepreneurship in Australia from the 1990s

Case Studies of success in Sino-Australian relations

First Edition

Jia Gao

(The University of Melbourne)

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

List of tables

List of figures

Preface and acknowledgements

About the author

List of abbreviations

1: Introduction to the Chinese in Australia

Abstract

1.1 A brief history of the Chinese in Australia

1.2 Chinese students in the late 1980s

1.3 Current literature on Chinese entrepreneurship

1.4 Organisation of this book

2: Settling down in the New Gold Mountain

Abstract

2.1 New migrants and postmigration realities

2.2 The Xin Jinshan School

2.3 Competing in the education market

2.4 A game changer for new migrant families

3: Riding on the sheep's back

Abstract

3.1 Economic restructuring and opportunities

3.2 Spending buckets of gold on sheepskin

3.3 Making Yellow Earth products a fashion in China

4: Chinese electronics see the world

Abstract

4.1 A novel idea

4.2 The first Konka televisions arrive in Australia

4.3 Striving for a share in the Australian market

5: Opening two tightly closed doors

Abstract

5.1 Two tightly closed doors

5.2 Chinese study tours in Australia

5.3 Chinese roles in inbound tourism and education industries

6: Beyond the small community

Abstract

6.1 The suzhi of the new Chinese migrants

6.2 Breaking new ground in the community media market

6.3 The business of community radio

6.4 3CW as a forerunner to China's soft-power strategy

7: Towards an improved understanding of entrepreneurship

Abstract

7.1 Summary of findings

7.2 The Chinese in Australia in the post-mining boom

7.3 Future research possibilities

References

Index

Copyright

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Notices

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the people who have contributed to this research

List of tables

Table 2.1 Original set of ideals and life priorities 28

Table 2.2 Rearranged set of ideals and life priorities 28

Table 2.3 Chinese language varieties spoken at home (aged 5 years and over) 34

Table 3.1 Output shares of textiles, clothing and footwear within manufacturing in Australia, 1968–2000. 60

Table 3.2 Australia’s top 10 two-way trading partners 2012 65

Table 4.1 Australia’s Asian trading partners and their shares in Australia’s total trade with Asia 81

Table 5.1 Early development of China's outbound tourism, 1992–2007 (in thousands) 95

Table 6.1 Donations to 3CW in 2001 for repairs 124

List of figures

Figure 2.1 Qualifications of the China-born Australian residents aged 15 years and over in 2011 (%). Adapted from Community Information Summary: China-born. Canberra: DIAC (2011), p. 4 41

Figure 3.1 Employment in manufacturing as a percentage of Australia's total employment.

Based on data from: (1) Labour Force, Australia, ABS catalogue 6203.0; (2) ‘the manufacturing sector: Adapting to structural change’, Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletin, March 2001. 53

Figure 4.1 China's share of Australia's total merchandise trade.

Adapted from ‘Australia-China: Not just 40 years’, Economic Roundup, Issue 4 (2012). Canberra: The Treasury, n.p. 81

Figure 5.1 China's official business travellers and private tourists, 1992–2007 (in thousands). 95

Information based on Table 5.1.

Figure 5.2 Travellers from China to Australia.

Adapted from ‘Australia-China: Not just 40 years’, Economic Roundup, Issue 4 (2012). Canberra: The Treasury, n.p. 97

Figure 6.1 Total Australian migrant intakes by visa category, 1992–2004.

Adapted from The Commonwealth-Victoria Working Party on Migration (2004), Final Report, State Government of Victoria, Melbourne, p. 16. 106

Figure 6.2 Growth in trade between Australia and China, 1954–2007.

Adapted from How China trade benefits Australian Households. Sydney: Australia China Business Council, 2012, p. 14. 111

Figure 6.3 Weekly uses of media in Australia.

Based on data from ‘Internet overtakes TV in Aus’, Marketing, 16 December 2011. 121

Preface and acknowledgements

This book is the result of my continuing longitudinal research on the experiences of new Chinese migrants in Australia. For more than 25 years, I have undertaken a longitudinal study of the new Chinese migrant community that was formed in Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The early part of their experiences provided me with a chance to examine Chinese activism, the study of which was published under the title Chinese Activism of a Different Kind: The Chinese Students’ Campaign to Stay in Australia (Gao, 2013a). This particular book is my second major publication based on this area of research.

Direct immigration from mainland China to Australia has resumed since the late 1980s and early 1990s, when tens of thousands of Chinese students were permitted by the Hawke–Keating Labor government to stay permanently in Australia (Birrell, 1994; Gao, 2001, 2009). Since then, there have been some studies analysing a range of issues associated with the settlement of new immigrants from the Chinese mainland or the PRC (the People’s Republic of China) as it is often called. The Chinese immigrants have been portrayed in various ways, but there are few analyses of how these Chinese immigrants survived Australia’s worst post-war recession in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Deloitte, 2012), and how their new community has since sustained itself and become one of the model communities in Australia.

It is also more than two decades since the late 1980s and early 1990s recession, when no country like Australia avoided the recession and prospered, but even achieved a growth rate that was a multiple of many other Western countries (CBC, 2012; Deloitte, 2012). This significant achievement has been simply credited to Australia’s historic shift to Asia, if not to some politicians and governments, and some big corporations, especially a number of mining companies. What has largely been overlooked in both the public discussion and the current research literature is the role of hundreds of thousands of new Chinese immigrants in not only making Australians aware of opportunities in China but also in actually transforming Sino–Australian relations through their entrepreneurial activities.

This book seeks to address the major gaps in the existing literature and knowledge by offering an account of a group of new Chinese migrant entrepreneurs who have succeeded in their business ventures through their skill and resourcefulness, and made great contributions to both Australia and China. The profound transformation of the relationship between Australia and China from the early 1990s to the present is one of the most important changes in the Asia-Pacific region. This book is therefore relevant to contemporary Australia, China and the Asia-Pacific region. More importantly, this book will add new theoretical considerations and solid empirical evidence to an increasing interest, both in academic circles and among the general public, in entrepreneurship through thinking beyond the existing institutional and network perspectives on a new breed of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs.

Chinese migration and the new breed of Chinese migrant entrepreneurs are hot topics. This book distinguishes itself from a few other books, both authored and edited, on ethnic Chinese business and overseas Chinese entrepreneurs in the following crucial aspects. First, this book focuses on the people whose entrepreneurial activities have spread across a number of industries, and facilitated trade and cultural contacts between the host country and the country of origin, instead of simply illustrating and emphasising macro-economic or political economic conditions, policy designs and some socio-economic or socio-political factors that would have an impact on individuals and groups.

Second, this research is based on the experiences of the new migrants from China, not on Australians of Chinese origin who have lived outside of China for several generations, who form the basis of almost all previously published books in English on this subject. This new basis will make it possible to analyse rapidly increasing interactions between China and the outside world.

Third, the new Chinese migrants are characterised by experiences, viewpoints and many other attributes that are different from what are usually called ‘old’ overseas Chinese. This particular new breed of PRC Chinese migrant entrepreneurs has demonstrated that various widely held assumptions about ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs, especially the institutional and network perspectives, are out of date and in need of further study and modification.

A fourth distinguishing feature of this book is that this study is based on my continuing longitudinal research on the new Chinese migrant community in Australia since the late 1980s. That is, this book is based on first-hand knowledge and decades-long observation of a group of new Chinese migrant entrepreneurs who obtained residency in Australia in the early 1990s and have since actively engaged in business activities.

Fifth, this book also intends to reveal a dynamic process, which to a certain extent challenges the overemphasis on the impact of globalisation on Chinese entrepreneurs and confronts the ignorance of their active role in shaping the globalisation process. To argue for the equal importance of a bottom-up process, this book will detail how new PRC Chinese migrant entrepreneurial activities have influenced the opening up of Australian tourism and international education markets, and China’s ‘going-out’ strategy.

This book could not have been written without the help of many friends and colleagues. I owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have for so many years kindly assisted my ongoing pursuit of studying this large group of new Chinese migrants. More than anyone else, my wife and our son deserve recognition, as they have not only borne the burden caused by my long and persistent research of this project, but encouraged me to persist with my undertaking. Since I was struck by my serious neck problem, caused by my long hours of desk-bound work, and especially since I had neck surgery about 10 years ago, I have been fully supported by them.

I could not have finished the writing of this book without the support of many friends. I am very grateful to a group of old schoolmates who are all now living in Australia, through whom I have been able to learn more about the community, in addition to my own observations and interviews. A network of this kind is especially helpful when large portions of my time and attention are increasingly confined to campus. I am particularly thankful to Mr Bob Baoming Shan, the owner and chief-editor of The United Times, a Melbourne-based Chinese community newspaper, who has for many years provided me with many ideas and crucial insights into the emergence and development of community-based entrepreneurial activities.

I am also indebted to Professor Chris Rowley, the editor of the Chandos Asian Studies Series, for encouraging me to start this book project, and Dr Glyn Jones, the publisher at Chandos Publishing, for accepting the manuscript for publication. I am very thankful to all the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on the first draft of the book. I am also very grateful to Dr George Knott and Ms Harriet Clayton for guiding me through the editorial process and for bringing the manuscript to press.

Among the many friends and colleagues who have assisted me during the writing of this book, Ms Li Linye, an exchange student from Tsinghua University, helped me search various databases to find the information needed for Chapter 6. I am greatly indebted to Ms Helen Koehne, an accredited editor of Editorial Combat, for her excellent professional assistance in editing the manuscript, and helpful comments and suggestions for its improvement.

Most of all, my very special thanks go to all the Chinese migrant entrepreneurs settling down in Australia since the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially those who have agreed to be included in this book, the names of whom will appear in each of the relevant chapters in this book. I owe a great debt of thanks to all of them, and I hope that they appreciate that their experiences have made an important contribution to our general knowledge of the new breed of Chinese migrants and their entrepreneurship, as well as of contemporary China and Australia.

Jia Gao, PhD, The University of Melbourne

References

Birrell B. The outcome of the 1 November [1993] decisions. People and Place. 1994;2(3):39–46.

CBC (Conference Board of Canada). Economic forecast: What do the economy report cards for 2010 and 2011 look like. Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada; 2012. www.conferenceboard.ca.

Deloitte Access Economics. Business outlook: 21 years without a recession … but Australia forgets to celebrate. Canberra: Deloitte Access Economics; 2012. www.deloitte.com.

Gao J. Chinese students in Australia. In: Jupp J, ed. The Australian people. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press; 2001:222–225.

Gao J. Lobbying to stay: The Chinese students’ campaign to stay in Australia. International Migration. 2009;47(2):127–154.

Gao J. Chinese activism of a different kind: The Chinese students’ campaign to stay in Australia. Leiden: Brill; 2013a.

About the author

Dr Jia Gao, or Gao Jia in the Chinese order, is a graduate of Beijing-based Renmin University of China, previously known as the People’s University of China, or commonly known as Renda in Chinese. As one of the first group of young Chinese to be admitted to university based on the highly competitive national entrance examinations that were swiftly reinstituted in mid-1977, shortly after the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, Jia Gao studied for his Bachelor degree (4 years) at the then most prestigious Department of Philosophy at Renda from 1978 to 1982. Upon graduation, he was first assigned by Renda to work as an officer of its administration team, and then to play an active part in the establishment of the Institute of Sociology at the university.

While teaching social psychology and sociology at Renda, Jia Gao was also playing an important role in introducing new disciplines of social psychology, sociology and anthropology from the West into China. Before leaving for Australia in mid-1988, he led the translation and publication of about 10 books in the fields of social psychology, sociology and other related academic fields. Because of his role in re-establishing social psychological and sociological studies in post-Mao China, he was awarded the first and only national academic prize in sociology by China's National Commission of Education and the Fok Ying Tung Foundation of Hong Kong in 1988. The prize was awarded for the first time since 1949. A small group of young Chinese researchers received their prizes in US dollars, and Jia Gao was one of only three recipients in non-scientific and non-technological fields.

In Australia, Jia Gao pursued his PhD in human geography at the University of Melbourne. His PhD on the topic of the Chinese students’ efforts to obtain the right to stay permanently in Australia after the so-called June 4 incident of 1989 remains the most comprehensive study of this largest intake of onshore asylum seekers in the history of Australian immigration. The thesis has since been revised and was published by Brill in 2013 under the title Chinese Activism of a Different Kind. Since the late 1980s, Dr Jia Gao has actively carried out continuing longitudinal research on the experiences of new Chinese migrants in Australia. Based on studies of various aspects of the new Chinese community, his research has focused on the issues that are empirically understudied and theoretically underdeveloped. Examples of his publications include ‘The role of primary social groups in migration decision-making’ in Asian and Pacific Migration Journal; ‘Organized international asylum seeker networks’ in International Migration Review; ‘Radio-activated business and power’ in W. Sun (ed.) Media and the Chinese Diaspora; ‘Migrant transnationality and its evolving nature’ in Journal of Chinese Overseas; ‘Lobbying to stay’ in International Migration; ‘Negotiating state logic’ in Omnes; and ‘Seeking residency from the courts’ in Journal of Chinese Overseas.

Dr Jia Gao has also produced a wide range of publications on numerous other research topics and themes in both English and Chinese, including his early extensive work on English-Chinese academic translation, a selected list of which can be found on the website of the University of Melbourne.

At present, Dr Jia Gao is an Associate Professor in the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, while at the same time serving as Assistant Dean (China) of the Faculty of Arts at the same university.

List of abbreviations

ABC   Australian Broadcasting Corporation

ABS   Australian Bureau of Statistics

ACBC   Australia China Business Council

ACD   Australian Chinese Daily (Xinbao)

ADS   Approved Destination Status

AEI   Australia Education International

AFP   Agence France-Presse

ALP   Australian Labor Party

ASIC   Australian Securities and Investment Commission

BBC   British Broadcasting Corporation

BHP   Broken Hill Proprietary (before 2001)

BUAA   Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (or Beihang University)

CAE   Council of Adult Education

CAFA   Central Academy of Fine Arts (China)

CAIEP   China Association for the International Exchange of Personnel

CAS   Chinese Academy of Sciences

CASS   Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

CBC   Conference Board of Canada

CCP   Chinese Communist Party

CCTV   China Central Television

CCYL   Chinese Communist Youth League

CIE   Centre for International Economics

CITIC   China International Trust and Investment Corporation

CNR   China National Radio

COFA   China Overseas Friendship Association

CPJ   Committee to Protect Journalists

CRI   China Radio International

DFAT   Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

DIAC   Department of Immigration and Citizenship (2006-now)

DIEA   Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (1976-87) (1993-96)

DILGEA   Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (1987-93)

DIMA   Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (1996-2001)

ELICOS   English Language Incentive Course for Overseas Students

EMDG   Export Market Development Grants

FAO   Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

FDI   Foreign direct investment

GMD   Guomindang (Chinese Nationalist Party)

HSC   Higher School Certificate (in New South Wales)

IMF   International Monetary Fund

KMT   Kuomintang (see GMD)

MNC   Multinational corporation

MP   Member of the Federal Parliament of Australia

OBQ   Oriental BQ [Beijing Youth] Weekly

PLA   People's Liberation Army (of China)

PPP   Public–private partnership

PRC   People's Republic of China

RMIT   Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

ROC   Republic of China

SBS   Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)

SES   Socio-economic status

SAFEA   State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs

SMH   The Sydney Morning Herald

TEP   Temporary Entry Permit

TRA   Tourism Research Australia

VCAA   Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority

VCE   Victorian Certificate of Education

VOA   Voice of America

VSL   Victorian School of Languages

WWV   Wonderment Walk Victoria

1

Introduction to the Chinese in Australia

Abstract

This chapter introduces some background information, including a brief and concise historical account of Chinese migration to Australia, especially the resumption of significant migration from the Chinese mainland to Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the emergence of a large number of new Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in Australia. This chapter reviews the current scholarly literature on Chinese migrants and their entrepreneurship, grounding it firmly in theoretical and empirical research. This chapter also outlines how this book is structured.

Keywords

History of Australian immigration

Shift to Asia

Australia fever

The Chinese student issue

1 November 1993 decisions.

The history of Chinese migration to Australia from the 1850s to the present could be broadly divided into several stages. Throughout these stages, the Chinese people have been portrayed in numerous ways, ranging from outsiders or aliens who were unable to assimilate, in the early decades, to hard-working citizens and a national economic asset, in more recent years. Many of the first Chinese migrants came during the gold rush in the nineteenth century and then settled into various trades, including market gardening and furniture making, leading up to the turn of the century. The second half of the twentieth century saw two significant turning points in the socioeconomic background of Chinese migrants (Sun, Gao, Yue, & Sinclair, 2011). The first turning point was the introduction of the Colombo Plan in Australia in the early 1950s, which brought in thousands of educated young Chinese people from selected Southeast Asian countries (Yuan, 2001; Oakman, 2004).¹ The second turning point was the settlement of 45,000 students from the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which led to increased immigration from China to Australia. Tens of thousands of Chinese students came to Australia in the second half of the 1980s under the English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) scheme. Almost all of them were allowed to remain in Australia permanently after the June 4 incident of 1989 (Gao, 2001, 2013a).² In reality, the decision by Paul Keating's Labor government in 1993 to allow around 45,000 Chinese nationals to stay was part of Australia's historic shift towards Asia. This was the beginning of the new Chinese migration. The shift and the significant impact that China and its migrants have subsequently had on the Australian economy were initiated by both Gough Whitlam's Labor government (1972–1975) and Malcolm Fraser's Liberal government (1975–1983) and then strongly advocated by the following Labor governments of Bob Hawke (1983–1991) and Paul Keating (1991–1996).

Therefore, the settlement of 45,000 or so Chinese students in the late 1980s and early 1990s is a very important part of Australian history and Chinese migration history. Since the acceptance of the Chinese students in 1993, the ethnic Chinese community in Australia has entered its current ‘model community’ or ‘model minority’ phase (Ho, 2007, p. 1; Pung, 2008, p. 4), which is predominantly characterised by their entrepreneurial spirit, skills and achievements.

This chapter introduces some background information for this book. The first and second sections of the chapter outline the brief history of Chinese migration to Australia. The third section looks at the existing literature and some theoretical explanations that are relevant to this study. The final section briefly outlines the organisation of the book.

1.1 A brief history of the Chinese in Australia

The first Chinese migrant labourers were recruited in the 1840s, arriving in Australia in relatively large numbers. This followed the decline of convict labour coming from Britain from the late 1820s and the abolition of slavery in 1833 (Dua, 1999; Hirst, 2008). The expansion of globalised capitalism in a postslavery world led to a desperate need for cheap labour (Koser, 2007). What was then termed ‘legitimate trade’ or commerce replaced the slave trade (Flint, 2008, p. 211). As part of the worldwide expansion of this ‘legitimate trade’, a system of indentured labour emerged. Farmers' demands led the colonial governments to start indentured labour schemes in Australia (Curthoys, 2003; Fitzgerald, 2007). At almost the same time, China was forced to open its door to the outside world, mostly because of the first and second Sino-British wars (1840–1842 and 1856–1860) (Lovell, 2011; Waley, 1968), and its peasants immediately became a target of the new global system of indentured labour. Against this particular historical context was a perfect combination of push factors in China and pull factors in Australia. As Ling (1998) observed, China in the 1840s and 1850s was full of natural calamities, floods and famines, particularly in the regions of Guangdong and Guangxi, which gave way to the catastrophic Taiping Rebellion. The rebellion erupted across South China in 1850 because of population pressure and the widespread famines from 1847 to 1849 (Johnson, 1962). The Taiping Rebellion devastated the land, uprooted the peasantry and destroyed the economy (Ling, 1998) until the last group of Taiping rebels was defeated in 1869.

The number of Chinese indentured labourers increased dramatically during the gold rush of the 1850s in Victoria and New South Wales. Many poor Chinese in South China were enticed by the offer of paid employment that emerged on Australia's goldfields. Tens of thousands of Chinese labourers were brought to Australia from China's poor and war-torn agricultural south, mainly from Guangdong Province (Choi, 1975; Clark, 1969). Such multifaceted and complex historical circumstances contradict the unadorned portrayal of Chinese gold diggers as reckless fortune hunters (Hutcheon, 1996; Davison, 2001), although it was accurate that ‘wherever gold was discovered in Australia, a strong Chinese community developed’ (Porter, 2006, p. 123). By the standards of the time, this early group of migrants was sizable, resulting in a high proportion of Chinese in Australia: approximately 4% of the Australian population (Blainey, 1982), up to 7% of Victoria's population in 1857 (Cronin, 1982) and over 12% in Victoria in 1859 (McConnochie, Hollinsworth, & Pettman, 1988).

The gold rush of the 1850s was the most spectacular episode in both the history of Australia's nation building and the history of Chinese migration. Since then, the Chinese have been an important part of Australian society, although the importance of their role in Australia and even their right to live in the country was contested for a long time (McMaster, 2001; Scholefield, 1919; Yong, 1977). The history of Chinese migration to Australia from the 1850s to the present may be divided broadly into six distinct phases:

1. the gold rush in Victoria and New South Wales in the 1850s and 1860s

2. the ‘establishing stage’ in the years after the gold rush

3. the long consolidation period in the early years of ‘White Australia’³

4. the diversification phase as a flow-on of the Colombo Plan in the 1950s and 1960s

5. the multicultural period from the mid-1970s to the 1980s

6. the ‘model community’ stage since the early 1990s (Sun et al., 2011).

Perhaps in response to the sufferings that numerous Chinese experienced while living in China, much of the research literature on early Chinese settlement in Australia has in some way recorded stereotypical ways of living: digging for gold, paying off debt and sending money home (Fitzpatrick, 1951). These portrayals ignore that the Chinese were engaged in a range of business- and community-based activities when they were still living in the goldfields (Kelly, 1977; Lovejoy, 2007; Rolls, 1992). In reality, a small group of literate Chinese helped build up the new community in Australia, especially towards the end of the gold rush (Cronin, 1982).

During the gold rush, the Chinese were in fact the largest non-British group (Leuner, 2008) who worked in Australia's goldfields. Apart from a small group of Chinese who worked as storekeepers and merchants, a great majority were diggers in the goldfields. The first collective effort made by Chinese gold diggers was the formation of their networks (Bowen, 2011), which were mainly aimed at organising basic supplies including accommodation, equipment, food and clothing. This challenged what European gold diggers were used to. The networks meant that the Chinese stopped buying supplies from European merchants. It was at that time seen as a serious economic threat to Europeans, resulting in hostility towards the Chinese (Reeves, 2009).

Contrary to the earlier understanding that Chinese diggers spread around Australia after the gold rush and died out after a considerable decrease in their numbers by about two-thirds (Clark, 1969; Willard, 1967), numerous studies have recorded their efforts to stay in Australia, as they ventured into small businesses in towns and cities (Choi, 1975; Cronin, 1982; Wang, 2001).

After the gold rush of the 1850s, the ‘establishing stage’ of early Chinese settlement in colonial Australia began. Over this period, Chinese diggers were making efforts to find other livelihoods to avoid rivalries with European diggers. From the early 1860s, there was a gradual occupational shift of the Chinese, from gold mining, to other alternative livelihoods, initially market gardening (McGowan, 2004), to furniture making and laundering (Huck, 1970; Yong, 1977). In Victoria, around one-third of the Chinese worked in market gardening in the late 1860s, and the number increased to about 50% by 1901.

The occupational shift of Chinese immigrants during this period was also met with difficulties and resistance. European diggers were also suffering from the decreasing yields of the goldfields. Furniture making and laundries became a new focus of labour unrest against the Chinese in both Sydney and Melbourne (Denoon, Mein-Smith, & Wyndham, 2000). Victoria and New South Wales enjoyed a few years of prosperity after the early years of the gold rush; the populations were growing and economies in nongold sectors were booming. At the time, both furniture making and laundries were profitable industries. A number of discriminatory legislations against various Chinese businesses were soon passed, restricting the hours that the Chinese could work in laundries and the furniture trade, because unionists representing white workers tried to push the Chinese out of these profitable industries (Kee, 1992). However, because of the shortage of labourers, especially in the prosperous 1880s, the Chinese survived. Furniture made by the Chinese had to be stamped as made by non-Europeans, yet these actions did not push the Chinese out of the industry. In some small urban centres and townships, they even managed to monopolise the furniture-making industry (Griffiths, 2006; Markus, 1979).

As a direct result of the occupational shift, Chinese settlers began to move into local towns and cities. According to Choi (1975), only about 1.5% of the Chinese population in New South Wales lived in Sydney in 1861, but the percentage reached 4.7% in 1871 and then almost 13% in 1881, 26.4% in 1891 and 34% in 1901. The concentration of the Chinese population in big urban centres created new opportunities for them. There were as many as 799 Chinese stores and grocers in New South Wales by 1901. In Victoria, 168 small furniture factories, one-third of the total number of factories, were Chinese-owned. Chinese workers accounted for about 31% of laundry workers in 1912.

Import–export businesses were also on the rise when the goldfields were no longer able to provide adequate incomes, and more Chinese were moving into new employment in new locations. Running import–export businesses required better English language skills, networks and investment, but there were a number of Chinese-run import–export businesses in operation in Melbourne and Sydney in the late 1870s (Collins, 2002; Kuo, 2009). The emergence of this category of business was an indicator of how the Chinese were established in and integrated into the economic and social life of Australia.

The push–pull forces behind the Chinese migration of the late nineteenth century started changing after a few decades of economic development in China, predominantly driven by the Yangwu Yundong (Westernisation Movement), which was initiated in the 1860s (Huters, 2005; Scott, 2008). As a result, the attraction of an economically revitalised China, especially South China, increased noticeably. The direction of the push–pull dynamics shifted in favour of the return migration to China. The pull of China was then strengthened by