National Observer Home > No. 43 - Summer 2000 > Book Review

Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850-1939

by Professor David Walker

Brisbane: University of Queensland Press (UQP Australian Studies), 1999, pp. 300 and index.

The author is the Professor of Australian Studies at Deakin University in Victoria. His book provides an outline of Australian attitudes towards Asia up to the beginning of the Second World War.

The book is well-researched and copiously footnoted. It reveals an undercurrent of concern in Australia, from the earliest times, in regard to Asia. From time to time — and perhaps not without reason — much apprehension arose in Australia in regard to both real and perceived threats from the North. The author comments of the Chinese, "They were seen as a wily and immensely adaptable people, widely credited with unsurpassed survival skills."

So in the 1890s Charles Pearson's popular work aroused further concern about China, with his warning that the "lower" would overtake the "higher" races: "Pearson thought that China would become the dominant world power and on this question his ideas attracted particular attention."

As it happened, the critical threat arose from the disciplined and capable Japan, as opposed to small-minded and inherently disorganised Chinese. Without the help of the United States, Australia would probably have become a Japanese colony in the 1940s.

Indeed, in England in 1933 the Dean of Canterbury, the Reverend Hewlett Johnson, urged that the "statesmanlike" approach should be taken of giving the Northern Territory to the Japanese, to ease its population measures. His advice was a reminder that other nations could not be relied upon to protect Australian sovereignty.

The author comments that "the Chinese threat" was seen "more in terms of sheer numbers of settlers" than in terms of direct military action by China. This perception was of course correct, although in the event the arrival of large numbers of Chinese today has occurred long after the expectations of the anxious generations of the nineteenth century.

A point of criticism of Professor Walker's work is that it is written from a somewhat internationalist and politically correct point of view. His discussions of Australian apprehensions of earlier times are often condescending, although in retrospect the general thrust of those apprehensions appears reasonable.

And in fact the recent influx of Asians to Australia is a matter for concern. Asians have increased to the point that they represent an ethnic voting bloc and are able to impose pressure upon political parties to permit further substantial ethnic immigration. This is of concern, as is the fact that many temporary visitors to Australia outstay their visas and are difficult to trace for return to their country of origin.

Further, the apparent inability of the Commonwealth government to deal appropriately with illegal "boat-people" immigrants is another matter for concern. Illegal immigrants should not be granted civic Australian rights, but should be returned — immediately and humanely — to their places of origin or to some other place of their choosing. In view of the current widespread and indeed prevalent abuse of "refugee status" claims, it is not appropriate that extremely large numbers of immigrants can obtain taxpayer-funded legal representation to proceed in the courts against the Australian authorities. (A recent estimate is that these costs are as great as $65,000 per illegal immigrant.)

I.C.F. Spry

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National Observer No. 43 - Summer 2000