What should Australia do? The Qing empire started on the journey of recognising the role of Chinese residents of Australia 130 years ago. The People's Republic moved relations with overseas Chinese onto a wartime footing. Beijing's current approach risks damaging mutually respectful ties between Australia and China at the people-to-people level. Australia should not reciprocate in kind.

Australian governments and communities could however consider adopting a more concerted policy response embracing active cultural and social inclusion, and effective diaspora diplomacy, to match the effort and resources that Beijing invests in Chinese overseas affairs, including Chinese language media.

This piece first appeared in the Lowy Interpreter here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Luo Shaoyang/CC by 2.0.