澳大利亚悉尼 - 2018 年 4 月 22 日：悉尼唐人街的人群。
当我问梅卓琳在国会大厦为中国总理李强举行的午宴上的经历时，她说：“我认为午宴最精彩的部分是达顿激情四射地发表演讲，说每个人都希望与中国的关系改善。”
此外，在接受 2GB 采访时，达顿说：“我支持中国，支持我们与中国的关系。”他还希望增加与中国的贸易。达顿近乎热情洋溢的言论让包括记者在内的许多人都大吃一惊，促使《悉尼先驱晨报》的马修·诺特 (Matthew Knott) 质问“亲华”达顿是否“从鹰派变成了鸽派”。
达顿对华态度的大转变既带来了惊喜，也带来了尖刻的嘲讽。许多人认为这是又一个政客为了当选不择手段的例子。但尽管反应不同，普遍的共识是，他的言辞变化，即使不是他改变主意，也只能是一件好事。
当然，如果自由党赢得下一届选举，没有人能预测达顿和他的政党会对中国说些什么、做些什么。但正如詹姆斯·劳伦森 (James Laurenceson) 指出的那样，至少可以相当肯定的是，中国不会成为下一届选举的分歧问题。
达顿必须考虑到这样一个事实：斯科特·莫里森留下的政党不仅有“女性问题”，还有“中国问题”。当达顿试图赢得女性和城市专业选民的支持时，他说“我不是莫里森”，似乎他向华裔澳大利亚选民传达了同样的信息。
正如自由党所清楚地看到的那样，联盟党的反华立场让他们付出了沉重的选举代价。四个华裔人口占很大比例的边缘席位——墨尔本的奇泽姆、珀斯的唐尼、悉尼的里德和悉尼北部的本尼朗——都转向了工党。许多没有华裔血统的亚裔澳大利亚人也投票反对联盟党，这主要是因为他们遭受了反华和反亚裔的种族主义，尤其是在新冠疫情高峰期。
联盟党的主要竞选议程之一是国家安全。谁会忘记堪培拉、珀斯、墨尔本，甚至可能还有其他城市里那些引人注目的红色卡车，上面载着习近平的画像，还有“中共说要投票给工党”等口号。这些竞选噱头显然得到了保守派政治游说团体“前进澳大利亚”的授权。
联盟党的反华言论显然适得其反。这是自由党现在不得不吞下的苦果。看来，未来他们最好从 ABC 的格鲁恩团队那里得到建议，而不是从他们自己的政治游说团体那里得到建议。
达顿试图向人们保证，他不是莫里森，“但我仍然是达顿”。但这很难让很多人放心。而且他自己对华政策的记录也并不比他的前任好多少。在担任联盟党国防部长期间，达顿发表了不少旨在加剧对中国安全担忧的无端言论，这些言论遭到陆克文的严厉批评，陆克文称达顿的言论“毫无根据”、“愚蠢”、“毫无根据”。
的确，自从成为反对党领袖以来，达顿对华强硬言论的语气已经有所收敛，并且基本避免发表无端挑衅的言论，他似乎把这项任务留给了下属，比如詹姆斯·帕特森和之前温和派的西蒙·伯明翰。
但由于自由党由达顿领导，许多澳大利亚华裔选民可能仍然难以相信他的话。
在达顿宣布自己现在“亲中”之后，澳大利亚最大的中文数字媒体《今日悉尼》对其读者进行了一项非正式调查，询问达顿的“亲中”声明是否会改变他们的投票方式。
百分比数字不符合达顿的喜好。在参与调查的600人中，多达65%的人表示他们“绝对不信任达顿，因为联盟党在上次选举中的咄咄逼人的行为仍然历历在目”。另有9%的人表示他们“想相信他，但仍然不相信，所以他们很可能仍会投票给工党”。
调查结束时读者的评论有助于理解这些百分比数字。不止一位读者想起了一句著名的中国谚语“黄鼠狼来找母鸡，可以肯定的是黄鼠狼没有好心”。其他人则不那么文艺，他们说“我不会投票给一个好战的政党，尤其是一个现在支持核选择的政党”。另一位读者评论说：“如果联盟党上台，对中国的影响不会太大——中国太强大了，不会在意。但我们华裔澳大利亚人是首当其冲的受害者。”
这并不是说，如果工党想留住中国选民，就可以高枕无忧。最新的 UTS:ACRI/BIDA 民意调查数据应该是一个预警信号。当被问及哪个政党最适合处理澳大利亚的对华政策时，结果显示，澳大利亚工党的支持率与自由党/国家党联盟在 2023 年开启的对华政策管理的支持率之间的差距似乎正在缩小。根据民意调查，四成澳大利亚人（40%）认为澳大利亚工党为最适合处理澳大利亚对华政策的政党。这比 2023 年（49%）下降了 9 个百分点，但仍高于 2022 年选举前的 35% 的低点。34% 的澳大利亚人表示，自由党/国家党联盟最适合处理澳大利亚的对华政策，比 2023 年（29%）增加了 5 个百分点，在 2022 年联邦选举前回升至 36% 的高点。
一些传统的自由党选民在各个华裔澳大利亚社区中，上次为了抗议联盟的反华政策而转向工党，他们可能会决定下次回归自由党，主要有两个原因。与大多数澳大利亚选民一样，生活成本也许是最重要的考虑因素，无论对错，一些华裔澳大利亚人似乎和许多普通民众一样，认为自由党比工党更善于管理经济。
此外，澳大利亚华人社区比公众更加敏锐地注意到，尽管工党的言辞较为平静，但其对华政策似乎与联盟党并无太大区别。澳大利亚华人还报告称，他们对澳大利亚AUKUS的认可度明显较低，而工党不仅从联盟党手中继承了这项国防承诺，而且也承担了这项承诺。
对于各大政党来说，最重要的信息或许是，他们中的任何一个都不能将澳大利亚华人社区的支持视为理所当然。
(该译文的英文原文出自 Pearls and Irritations，为澳大利亚独立媒体）
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作者介绍：
孙婉宁
孙婉宁是悉尼科技大学媒体与文化研究教授。她还担任悉尼科技大学澳中关系研究所副主任。她是澳大利亚人文学院院士和澳大利亚研究委员会专家学院成员（2020-23 年）。她在中国研究领域最为知名的是其关于当代中国农村向城市迁移和社会不平等的民族志研究。她撰写的文章涉及中国侨民、侨居华人媒体和澳中关系。
（英文原文）
‘When a weasel makes a courtesy call on a hen’: a ‘pro-China’ Dutton and Chinese-Australian voters
By Wanning Sun
Jul 9, 2024
When I asked Jocelyn Chey about her experience at the lunch in Parliament House in honour of Chinese Premier Li Qiang, she said, “I thought the best part of the lunch was Dutton’s speech through gritted teeth about how everyone wants relations with China to improve.”
Also, speaking to 2GB, Dutton said, “I’m pro-China and the relationship that we have with them.” He also wanted to increase trade with China. Dutton’s almost gushy remarks caught many, including journalists, by surprise, prompting Sydney Morning Herald’s Matthew Knott to ask whether ‘pro-China’ Dutton has ‘morphed from a hawk into a dove’.
Dutton’s about-face on China was met with a mixture of pleasant surprise and acerbic cynicism. Many see this as yet another example that some politicians would say just about anything in order to get themselves elected. But despite the different reactions, the general consensus is that his change of rhetoric, if not his change of heart, can only be a good thing.
Of course, no one can predict what Dutton and his party will say and do about China if the Liberals win the next election. But as James Laurenceson points out, at least it can be fairly certain that China won’t be a wedge issue in the next election.
Dutton has to reckon with the fact that Scott Morrison left behind a party that not only has a ‘women’s problem’ but also a ‘China problem’. It seems that when Dutton said ‘I’m not Morrison’ in his attempt to woo back women and urban professional voters, he might as well be pitching the same message to Chinese-Australian voters.
As is made painfully clear to the Liberals, the Coalition’s anti-China position cost them dearly in electoral terms. Four marginal seats with a large percentage of the population of Chinese heritage—Chisholm in Melbourne, Tangney in Perth, Reid in Sydney, and Bennelong in northern Sydney—swung to Labor. Many Asian-Australians who do not have Chinese heritage also voted against the Coalition largely in response to the anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism they had been subjected to, especially during the peak of Covid.
One of the key election campaign agendas of the Coalition was national security. Who can forget the eye-catching red trucks in Canberra, Perth, Melbourne, and possibly other cities, carrying images of Xi Jinping with slogans such as ‘CCP says vote Labor’. The election campaign stunts were apparently authorised by the conservative political lobby group Advance Australia.
The Coalition’s anti-China rhetoric such as this clearly backfired spectacularly. This is the bitter pill that the Liberals now have to swallow. It seems that in the future they might be better off getting advice from the ABC’s the Gruen team than from their own political lobby group.
Dutton sought to assure people that he is not Morrison, ‘but I am still Dutton’. But that is hardly reassuring to many people. And his own track record on China is not much better than his predecessor’s. In his role as Defence Minister in the Coalition, Dutton made his own fair share of gratuitous comments aiming to ramp up security concerns about China—comments which earned scathing criticism from Kevin Rudd, who called Dutton’s rhetoric ‘hairy-chested’, ‘idiotic’, ‘declaratory bullshit’.
It’s true that since he became the opposition leader, Dutton has toned down his hawkish rhetoric on China and has mostly refrained from making gratuitous, provocative comments—he seems to leave that task to his subordinates like James Paterson and previously moderate Simon Birmingham.
But because the Liberals are led by Dutton, many Australian Chinese voters may still find it hard to take his words at face value.
Following Dutton’s declaration that he is now ‘pro-China’, Sydney Today, Australia’s biggest Chinese-language digital media outlet, conducted an informal poll among its readers asking if Dutton’s ‘pro-China’ declaration will likely change how they vote.
The percentage figures would not be to Dutton’s liking. Among the 600 people who participated in the poll, as many as 65% said that they ‘definitely do not trust Dutton, because the Coalition’s aggressive behaviour from the last election is still too vivid in memory’. Another 9% said that they ‘want to believe him but they are still not convinced, so they would most likely still vote for Labor’.
Readers’ comments at the end of the survey are helpful in making sense of these percentage figures. More than one reader evoked a well-known Chinese saying ‘when a weasel makes a courtesy call on a hen, you can be sure that the weasel harbours no good intentions’. Others are less literary, saying that ‘I would not vote for a war-mongering party, especially one that now favours nuclear options’. Another reader observes, ‘If the Coalition gets in, it won’t affect China that much – China is too strong to care. But us Chinese-Australians are the first to suffer’.
This is not to say that Labor can rest on its laurels if it wants to retain Chinese voters. Figures from the latest UTS:ACRI/BIDA poll should be an early warning sign. When asked which political party is best placed to handle Australia’s China policy, the results show that the gap between support for the Australian Labor Party and support for the Liberal/National Coalition’s management of China policy that opened up in 2023 seems to be closing. According to the poll, four in 10 Australians (40 percent) nominate the Australian Labor Party as the political party best placed to handle Australia’s China policy. This reflects a nine-point decrease from 2023 (49 percent), although still up from a pre-election low of 35 percent in 2022. Thirty-four percent of Australians say the Liberal/National Coalition is best placed to handle Australia’s China policy, a five-point increase from 2023 (29 percent), inching back to its high of 36 percent going into the 2022 federal election.
It is possible that some traditional Liberal voters in various Chinese-Australian communities who swung to Labor in protest against the Coalition’s anti-China policy last time may decide to return to the Liberals next time for two main reasons. Like most Australian voters, the cost of living is perhaps the most important consideration, and rightly or wrongly, some Chinese-Australians, like many in the general public, seem to buy into the assumption that the Liberals are better at managing the economy than Labor.
Furthermore, Chinese-Australian communities have noticed – much more acutely than the general public – that Labor’s China policy does not seem very different from that of the Coalition, despite its calmer rhetoric. Chinese-Australians also reported a significantly lower level of approval for AUKUS—a defence commitment which Labor has not only inherited from the Coalition but also taken ownership of.
Perhaps the most important message for the major political parties is that none of them can take the support of Chinese-Australian communities for granted.
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Wanning Sun
Wanning Sun is a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. She also serves as the deputy director of the UTS Australia-China Relations Institute. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a member of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts (2020-23). She is best known in the field of China studies for her ethnography of rural-to-urban migration and social inequality in contemporary China. She writes about Chinese diaspora, diasporic Chinese media, and Australia-China relations.
（声明：以上文章仅代表署名作者的观点，不代表本平台观点）
