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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Australia’s Chinese community proved to be a powerful voting bloc in the last election. And as the time draws near to vote again, more and more politicians are realising that appealing to the country’s 1.5 million Chinese Australians is key to electoral success.

But as Journalist Wing Kuang has found, the major parties' attempts to court Chinese voters are proving to be rocky.

The Chinese-owned RedNote app is a new frontier in trying to reach Chinese voters but with speech on RedNote filtered by an authoritarian regime, it raises questions about how political debate in Australia is being shaped by foreign rules.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Wing Kuang, on how the Chinese community might shape the outcome of the election and what they really think of Albanese and Dutton.

It’s Saturday, March 15.

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DANIEL:

Wing, welcome to the show. Do you have a RedNote account?

WING:

I do and I have actually been a long time fan of RedNote. I use the account to look for recommendations on restaurants, on good shops, on brands and how to find the best outfit for my first job as well.

So RedNote was launched in 2013 at a time when China just had this massive boom of transborder e-commerce. Which means that people look online and try to buy products directly from overseas. And this is how RedNote was first launched as an overseas shopping guide. RedNote is quite similar to TikTok in terms of how it uses an algorithm that goes really strong on personalisation and making your feed customised based on your interests, but also it endorsed a really strong geolocational algorithm. You can always see posts shared by people who are nearby and, because of that function, the app stands out among the Chinese diaspora. So since 2021, RedNote has become quite a phenomenon within the Chinese Australian community. By November last year, there were almost 700,000 people in Australia actively using Rednote. If you compare that to the Chinese population in Australia, which is 1.4 million, that's like half of the Chinese population in Australia using the platform.

DANIEL:

If it works through geolocation, that sounds like it would be useful for electoral politics. So how have politicians been using it?

WING:

Yeah so, it makes it so easy for politicians to make posts that target their local voters. ABC News actually did a research last November and it had found over 20 politicians of all levels having an account on RedNote.

So firstly, from the current sitting MP at the federal level, we have the Liberal Party’s Keith Wolahan, who is from the seat of Menzies.

Audio excerpt — Keith Wolahan:

“Da jia hao, wo jiao Keith Wolahan, your federal member of Parliament. Zhe shi Sarah, my wife.”

WING:

His electorate has a huge Chinese population and he's been a star on RedNote.

Audio excerpt — Keith Wolahan:

“This is the year of the snake and I was born in the year of the snake. And I know that means it's a year of renewal and we need that more than ever.”

WING:

We also have Labor MP Carina Garland, who is from the seat of Chisholm, also another big Chinese electorate.

Audio excerpt — Carina Garland:

“Duanwu jie kuaile. I wanted to take a moment to wish all Chinese Australians in Chisholm a very happy dragon boat festival.”

WING:

Also in this election, I have spotted some first-time running Chinese Australians. One person I have spoken to is Wen Li, who is the Greens candidate for Bonner in Queensland and he's using that platform to communicate with potential voters. But something I do find very interesting is that the Greens have always been very vocal in terms of like global human rights issues, including China, and as well as the Israel-Hamas war, but I didn't really see these posts. And he told me that it’s not that he is not aware, but he decides not to post about a war on RedNote because he thinks that this is, like, quite irrelevant to the community. So he decides to just post topics that the Chinese users are interested in such as public transport, such as immigration policy, small businesses or economic policies.

DANIEL:
Would there be any risk of him being sanctioned or banned by RedNote if he was to talk about China's human rights record, for an example?

WING:

Yes. And in fact, Rednote has really clear terms of services that state that your account could be investigated or even suspended if you post anything that may damage China's national security socialist system or break any Chinese law. So what makes RedNote very different from WeChat or TikTok, which are the two major Chinese apps that we are very familiar, is that WeChat and TikTok are actually the international version of their Chinese prototype Weixin and Douyin. And the reason why they are the international versions is because China implemented a really strong censorship system and it also introduced two strong laws on data and privacy, which required all Chinese owned apps operating in China to hand the data to Beijing if Beijing wants them to. This has sparked a lot of concern in the international community. And so they introduced these international versions to address the international regulations and also try to say that we draw a line from our domestic apps, we won’t hand our data to Beijing if they request. But RedNote is a purely local app for China.

So what happened right now is there have been lots of federal politicians in Australia using the app to post politics related stuff, but they somehow just got shadow banned. So for example, Keith Wolahan and Carina Garland, their accounts still exist but when you try to type their name on a search, it never occurs.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break, how the major parties cut through when censorship on RedNote stops them from speaking to Chinese voters.

RUBY:

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DANIEL:

Wing, you've been reporting on how candidates are trying to reach Chinese voters in the lead up to the election. So what do we know about how the Chinese community voted last time around?

WING:

I think that in 2022, after losing several key Liberal seats such as Chisholm, the Liberal Party actually did an internal review and they said that they lose the Chinese Australian voters because of their stance on China being too hawkish. When Covid started, Scott Morrison directly told all the international students to go home. And following that, his government was the one that requested an independent inquiry into the Covid-19 origin and that annoyed China and as a result, it was seen as the beginning of a five year long trade dispute. And within the Chinese Australian community this group of people suffered a lot as a result of the dispute. And as a result, you can see the Liberal Party this time tried really hard to win back the voters from the Chinese community. Not only did they just start the launch in Chisholm, but also Peter Dutton himself has said that I'm going to be very pro-China this time.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Well, I'm pro-China and the relationship that we have with them. And I want that trading relationship to increase. And nobody's against pandas, of course.”

DANIEL:

So how is being “pro-panda” working out for Peter Dutton?

WING:

I have seen a few comments saying that I don't want to vote for Labor, but I would never ever vote for Peter Dutton. Chinese voters remember what Peter Dutton was like when he was holding the Home Affairs portfolio. Don't forget that many of these people were actually first generation migrants who went through the long migration process, probably under Peter Dutton. So I think they have been trying to push some more moderate faces to the Chinese Australian community, and one of the candidates that they have spent a lot of marketing and advertising on is Scott Yung, who is running for the seat for Bennelong, which is now held by Labor.

Audio excerpt — Scott Yung:

“Well, in the heart of Bennelong today in Gladesville with Maria and Susan, talking to many small businesses owners who are working so so hard in this time. Maria, thanks for being out here.”

Audio excerpt — Maria:

“Thank you for having us Scott.

WING:

He's been known by the community since his first run for politics, probably back in 2019. And he does have this handsome look, successful entrepreneur, great son of Chinese migrant parents.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“One of the things that excites me most about Scott is that those young kids in the local primary school today will be able to look to Scott when he goes as the member for Bennelong to that local school to present the certificates, to go to the fundraising nights…”

WING:

And Scott Yung has also been seen as, like, one of those young Chinese Australians who actively engage in the community and speak up for the community.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Those young Asian kids in particular will look at him and they will be inspired by him to take part in public life themselves, to join the great Liberal Party.”

WING:

So I could understand why this time, the Liberals actually invested a lot on Scott Yung to promote himself on Chinese social media.

DANIEL:

And what about the government? How are they faring with Chinese voters?

WING:

From the comments I've seen on RedNote, people do give a lot of acknowledgement on Labor for fixing the Australia-China relationships and also talking about how Anthony Albanese has been a very on the ground politician. Under the leadership of Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who, by the way, was also a very popular leader among the Chinese-Australians, we saw that China lifted up bans on Australian wine, Australian lobster and also beef. And the Labor Party has tried to use this as their advantage for this election by reminding people that they have been the contributor of the Australian-Chinese relations and they are the one to fix the problem. But probably to the surprise of many people, China itself is actually not on the top of the agenda for this election among the community. Cost of living and migration policies are the two big topics that people discuss a lot and it seems to going to be the very issue that will affect how the Chinese Australian community will vote this time.

DANIEL:

What do you think politicians are missing if they overlook the Chinese community in elections?

WING:

The Chinese community is always perceived as being apolitical, as someone that just want to earn money, go for the business. But people are trying to learn more about politics. Last year during the local government elections we are seeing an increased number of Chinese Australians running for politics and that says something.

What Australian politicians should pay attention to is the genuine, authentic discussion about the election from the Chinese Australian community. Lots of the users on RedNote are like the young, well educated people in their mid 30s and many of them would be first generation migrants who can actually vote. And they have had some really interesting discussions about this coming election.

DANIEL:

Wing, thank you so much for your time and thank you for speaking with us.

WING:

Thank you so much, Daniel, for having me.

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DANIEL:

7am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.

It’s made by Atticus Bastow, Cheyne Anderson, Chris Dengate, Erik Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah McVeigh, Travis Evans, Zoltan Fecso – and me, Daniel James.

Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

We’ll be back on Monday, with a special two part episode taking a closer look at Elon Musk, the department of government efficiency and what it looks like when you try to run the US Government like a tech company.

See you then.

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