Publishing Sydney’s Chinese Newspapers in the Australian Federation Era: Struggle for a Voice, Community and Diaspora Solidarity

Kuo, Mei-fen

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-67330-7_4

Mei-fen Kuo⁶

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media ((PSHM))

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Abstract

By examining the first three of Sydney’s Chinese newspapers—Chinese Australian Herald, Tung Wah News (Tung Wah Times) and Chinese Republic News—this chapter advances the debate around the shifting role of the Chinese migrant press in Australia’s Federation era. Chinese newspapers in Sydney demonstrated strategies for survival in a society which discriminated against them. This chapter argues that the early Chinese newspapers in Australia enabled migrant voices to speak out about political and social engagements. The idea of diaspora solidary began to strengthen a sense of being part of the Chinese diaspora and further promoted the Chinese Australian steamship corporation in 1916. However, from 1916 to 1924 the development and failure of this corporation reflect how diaspora solidarity did not guarantee a homogeneous voice and unity of the Chinese community.

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Notes

1.
Myra Willard, History of the White Australia Policy to 1920 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1978); C. Y. Choi, Chinese migration and settlement in Australia (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1975).
2.
John Fitzgerald, “Chinese Australians and the public diplomacy challenge for Australia in the 21st century”, in Chinese Australians: Politics, engagement and resistance, ed. S. Couchman and K. Bagnall (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2015), 267–289; Wanning Sun, John Fitzgerald and Jia Gao, “From multicultural ethnic migrants to the new players of China’s public diplomacy: The Chinese in Australia”, in China’s Rise and the Chinese Overseas, ed. B. Wong and C. B. Tan (New York: Routledge, 2018), 55–74.
3.
C. F. Yong, The New Gold Mountain: the Chinese in Australia, 1901–1921 (Adelaide: Raphael Arts, 1997); Mei-fen Kuo, Making Chinese Australia: Urban Elites, Newspapers and the Formation of Chinese Australian Identity, 1892–1912 (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2013).
4.
The statistics are based on the author’s research. In 1897, the Chinese Australian Herald stated its circulation of 800 copies per issue; see a letter from Chinese Australian Herald to Colonial Secretary, Colonial Secretary’s correspondence, State Records Authority of New South Wales (SRNSW), 5/6363 dated on 15 July 1897. In 1925, according to the boarder officer to the Secretary of Home and Territories Department, the average circulation of the Chinese Republic News was stated to be 5000 copies weekly. “Chinese Republican [Republic] News—Exemption for staff”, National Archives of Australia (NAA), A433, 1947/2/6297, PART 2.
5.
The Chinese Advertiser was published by Robert Bell in Ballarat from 1856 to 1858(?). It was published every Saturday and had a circulation of 400 copies. Its primary aim was to carry advertisements and inform the Chinese community in the goldfields about government regulations.
6.
German newspapers made up the largest foreign-press group in Australia as a whole because of the growth of the German immigrant population during the last decades of the nineteenth century, chiefly in South Australia, Queensland and Melbourne, but less so in Sydney. See Miriam Gilson and Jerzy Zubrzycki, The Foreign-language Press in Australia, 1848–1964 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1967), 10–13, 209. The Scandinavian foreign-language press, Norden, was published in Australia from the 1890s to the 1940s, which played an important role in reshaping the ethnic identity of Scandinavian in Australia. See Mark Jospeh Emmerson, “‘Vi er alle Australiere’: The Migrant Newspaper Norden and its Promotion of Pan-Scandinavian Unity within Australia, 1896–1940”, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Southern Queensland, 2015.
7.
Mei-fen Kuo, “Sydney Chinese press, diaspora capitalism and the White Australia Policy: the case of Percy Lee”, in “Voices of the Australian Migrant and Minority Press: Intercultural, Transnational and Diasporic Contexts” Conference, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, 22–23 November 2017. Emmerson, “‘Vi er alle Australiere’”.
8.
Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 258.
9.
Wanning Sun and John Sinclair, Media and Communication in the Chinese Diaspora: Rethinking Transnationalism (London: Routledge, 2006); Min Zhou, Contemporary Chinese America (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2009).
10.
Min Zhou and Gregor Benton, “Intra-Asian Chinese Migrations: A Historical Overview”, in Contemporary Chinese Diasporas, ed. Min Zhou (Singapore: Palgrave, 2017), 1–25.
11.
D. Browne and E. Uribe-Jongbloed, “Introduction: ethnic/linguistic minority media-what their history reveals, how scholars have studies them and what might ask next”, in Minority Languages and Social Media: Participation, Policy and Perspectives, ed. E. Haf Jones and E. Urine-Jongbloed (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2013), 1–28.
12.
Alicia Ferrández Ferrer, “Towards a democratization of the public space? Challenges for the 21st century”, in The Handbook on Diasporas, Media, Culture, ed. J. Retis and R. Tsagarousianou (Hoboken: Wiley, 2019), pp. 255–268.
13.
Lyn Spillman, Solidarity in Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Association (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012).
14.
H. A. Smith F.S.S., The Official Year Book of N.S.W. 1920 (Sydney: W. A. Gullick, Govt. Printer, 1921), 66.
15.
Ann Curthoys, “Men of All Nations, Except Chinamen: Chinese on the New South Wales Goldfields”, in Gold Forgotten Histories and Lost Objects of Australia, ed. Andrew Reeves, Iain McCalman and Alexander Cook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 115–116.
16.
T. A. Coghlan, General Report on the Eleventh Census of New South Wales (Sydney: Government Printer 1894), 127; T. A. Coghlan and T. T. Ewing, The Progress of Australia in the Century (London: Chambers, 1903), 137.
17.
Yong, The New Gold Mountain, 261.
18.
Philp, the Scottish-born author, printer and columnist, had not been long in Australia, having arrived from New Zealand in 1889 and joined The Bulletin in Sydney. See Matthew J. Fox, The history of Queensland: its people and industries: an historical and commercial review descriptive and biographical facts, figures and illustrations: an epitome of progress (Brisbane: States Publishing Company, 1923), 805. He was also a member of the Dawn and Dusk Club, which included many of Sydney’s avant-garde artists and intellectuals. See George A. Taylor, Those were the days: being reminiscences of Australian artists and writers (Sydney: Tyrell’s Limited, 1918), 11.
19.
According to Browne and Uribe-Jongbloed, only when a minority becomes “economically attractive” could advertisers be interested in supporting a minority group: Browne and Uribe-Jongbloed, “Introduction”.
20.
Chinese Australian Herald, January 26, 1897, p. 4. Although the Chinese Australian Herald had a Melbourne agent (H. Scott in Queen Street, from May 1895 to March 1896), the number of Chinese readers in Melbourne before 1896 is unclear. Chinese Australian Herald, May 10, 1895, pp. 7, 20; Chinese Australian Herald, March 1896, p. 1.
21.
See a letterhead from Chinese Australian Herald in 1897 to the Colonial Secretary, SRNSW, Colonial Secretary’s correspondence, item 5/6363, 15 July 1897.
22.
Bankruptcy files 1888–1929: Sun Johnson, SRNSW, 23567.
23.
Chinese Australian Herald, November 30, 1894, p. 7, January 5, 1895, p. 8, January 18, 1895 (calendar poster), May 24, 1895, p. 1, August 21, 1896, p. 6.
24.
Chinese Australian Herald, January 27, 1900.
25.
‘Defunct Company packet for Tung Wah News’, SRNSW, no. 3/5733 in 1723. See also Chinese Australian Herald, April 5, 1902, p. 4 and April 12, 1902, p. 5. Yong (1977:117) claims that the £1000 capital was divided into 4000 shares, but this appears to be an error. Chinese Australian Herald, April 26, 1902, p. 3.
26.
Chinese Australian Herald, April 5, 1902, p. 4.
27.
Tung Wah News, August 10, 1898, p. 4.
28.
From 1898 to 1900, Tung Wah News earned around £240 per year from subscriptions and advertising, but in 1901 it was involved a court case which reduced its earnings to around £114 (Chinese Australian Herald, April 5, 1902). Advertisements in the Tung Wah News and other newspapers are an important resource for understanding the development of Sydney Chinese firms and businesses and their location in the social network.
29.
For records on managing Tung Wah News see its various news reports and later Minutes of NSW Chinese Chamber of Commerce: Noel Butlin Archives Centre, The Australian National University, NBAC 111-4-1.
30.
Mei-fen Kuo, “Jinxin: the remittance trade and enterprising Chinese Australians, 1850–1916”, in Qiaopi Trade and Transnational Networks in the Chinese Diaspora, ed. Gregor Benton, Hong Liu and Huimei Zhang (Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2018), 160–178.
31.
Hong Liu and Gregor Benton, “The Qiaopi Trade and Its Role in Modern China and the Chinese Diaspora: Toward an Alternative Explanation of “Transnational Capitalism””, Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 3 (2016): 575–594.
32.
Sydney Morning Herald, August 22, 1904, p. 5.
33.
“Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New South Wales, Records of meetings, 1903–1904”, ANU NBAC, 111/2/1, 111/4/1; “Correspondence of NSW Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New South Wales, 1913–1917”, ANU NBAC, 111/2/1.
34.
Mei-fen Kuo, “The making of a diasporic identity: the case of the Sydney Chinese commercial elite, 1890s–1900s”, Journal of Chinese Overseas 5, no. 2 (2009), 336–363.
35.
For example, George Bew claimed that the value of his business, Wing Sang and Co., fell from £4000 in 1903 to £1000 in 1905, ‘George Bew, Leon Bew, Pearl Bew, Percy Bew, Daisy Alma Bew, George Noel Bew, Walter Bew, Elsie Bew, Edith Bew, Darling Bew’, NAA, SP244/2, N1950/2/3885.
36.
Tune Wah Times, July 16, 1904, supplement; Chinese Australian Herald, November 19, 1904, p. 5.
37.
Kuo, The making of a diasporic identity.
38.
On the concept of trade war, see Min Ma, Shangren jingshen de shanbian: jindai Zhongguo shangren guannian yanjiu [Transformation of the Chinese merchant spirit: studies on modern Chinese merchant concepts] (Wuhan: Huazhong shifan dzxue chubanshe, 2001), 80–83; Erh Min Wang, ‘Shangzhan guannian yu zhongshang sixiang’ [The concept of trade war and mercantilist thought]) in Zhongguo jindai sixiang shiliun [History of modern Chinese thought]) (Taipei: Hua shi chu ban she, 1977), 233–279. For en example of Sydney Chinese understandings of trade war, see Tune Wah Times, July 16, 1904, supplement.
39.
Tung Wah Times, July 2, 1904, supplement.
40.
Mei-fen Kuo, “Reframing Chinese labour rights: Chinese unionists, pro-labour societies and the nationalist movement in Melbourne, 1900–10”, Labour History 113 (2017): 133–155.
41.
The Shanghai boycott soon received supports from Chinese overseas.
42.
Chinese Times, May 18, 1904, p. 2; October 21 1905, p. 2.
43.
The proposal suggested to allow five categories of Chinese temporarily exemption for entry into Australia, such as merchants, students, officials, visitors and missionaries.
44.
Chinese Times, March 10, 1906, supplement.
45.
Chinese Times, July 14, 1906, p. 2.
46.
Mei-fen Kuo, “Confucian heritage, public narratives and community politics of Chinese Australians at the beginning of the 20^th century”, in Chinese Australians: politics, engagement and resistance, ed. Sophie Couchman and Kate Bagnall (Boston: Brill, 2015), 137–173.
47.
Jonathan Fenby, History of Modern China (3rd edn, London: Penguin Books, 2019), 133–138.
48.
Chinese Republic News, February 21, 1914, p. 2.
49.
Mei-fen Kuo and Judith Brett, Unlocking the History of the Australasian Kuo Min Tang, 1911–2013 (North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013), 17.
50.
National Archive of Australia, “Chinese Republican [Republic] News—Exemption for staff”, A433 1947/2/6297 PART 1.
51.
Chinese Republic News, September 23, 1916, p. 2.
52.
“Percy Lee [also known as Bert Hee Lowe]”, NAA, SP42/1, C1941/1585.
53.
On the history of the Chinese Mail Steamship Company, see Shehong Chen, Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American (Urbana & Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2002), 106–111.
54.
Zhongguo you chuan gong si and Zhuojing He, China Mail Steamship Co. ltd.; report, 1915–1919 (San Francisco: Shi jie ri boa she, 1919).
55.
Chinese Republic News, October 7, 1916, p. 3 and November 4, 1916, p. 2.
56.
Yong, The Gold Mountain, 98.
57.
Chinese Republic News, January 13, 1917, p. 7.
58.
Minutes of NSW Chinese Chamber of Commerce, dated on 10 June 1917 in Noel Butlin Archives, The Australian National University, NBAC 111.
59.
Chinese Republic News, August 11, 1917, p. 7.
60.
Chinese Republic News, September 15, 1917, p. 6.
61.
Tung Wah Times, October 13, 1917, p. 7; Chinese Australia Herald, October 20, 1917, p. 1.
62.
Tung Wah Times, September 29, 1906, p. 6.
63.
Chinese Republic News, January 12, 1918, p. 5.
64.
Tung Wah Times, July 7, 1917, p. 7.
65.
Tung Wah Times, December 8, 1917, p. 8.
66.
Chinese Republic, News, July 27, 1918, p, 6.
67.
Chinese Australian Herald, November 2, 1918, p. 2.
68.
Yong, The New Gold Mountain, 102.
69.
Yong, The New Gold Mountain, 106.
70.
Joe Tong’s letter to mother, 28 February 1919 in “Papers of the Chau family”, National Library of Australia, MS10030.
71.
Mei-fen Kuo and John Fitzgerald, “Chinese students in White Australia: state, community, and individual responses to the student visa program, 1920–1925”, Australian Historical Studies 47, no. 2 (2016): 259–277.
72.
Joe Tong’s letter to mother, July 5, 1919. Joe Tong’s letter also repeated the term as “cold animal” which was appeared widely printed in Chinese Australian newspapers. The term was produced by Chinese newspapers since 1900s to promote Chinese national products over foreign products.
73.
Joe Tong’s letter to parents, November 24, 1921.
74.
Yong, The Gold Mountain, 109.
75.
William Liu and Hazel de Berg, “William Liu interviewed by Hazel de Berg, 1978”, National Library of Australia.

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Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Mei-fen Kuo

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University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
Catherine Dewhirst
University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia
Richard Scully

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Kuo, Mf. (2021). Publishing Sydney’s Chinese Newspapers in the Australian Federation Era: Struggle for a Voice, Community and Diaspora Solidarity. In: Dewhirst, C., Scully, R. (eds) Voices of Challenge in Australia’s Migrant and Minority Press. Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67330-7_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67330-7_4
Published: 04 December 2021
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