,
Melbourne, 1866 Chinese peoples have a long and continuing role in Australian history. There were early links between China and Australia when Macau and Canton were used as an important trading ports with the fledgling colony.
Mak Sai Ying (also known as John Shying) was the first officially recorded Chinese migrant in 1818. After his arrival he spent some time farming before, in 1829, he became prominent as the
publican of
The Lion in
Parramatta. Early-19th-century migration was in limited numbers and sporadic, primarily those who came in this period were free merchants or adventurers and, the more common, indentured labourers. 's
Golden Dragon Museum, dedicated to the history of the Chinese on the Victorian goldfields The
Australian Gold Rushes are what first lured thousands of Chinese to the country. In 1855 in
Melbourne there were 11,493 Chinese arrivals. This was startling considering that barely five years previous, Melbourne's entire population had only been around 25,000 people. By 1858, 42,000 Chinese immigrants had arrived in Victoria, with many of them living in boarding houses in Little Bourke Street. Due to the widespread racist sentiments in parliament and on the goldfields, the first of many immigration restrictions and Chinese targeting laws was passed in late 1855. However, due to the long, poorly regulated borders between the colonies of Australia the numbers of Chinese on the goldfields continued to swell. Upon the goldfields Chinese peoples faced many hardships. There were violent anti-Chinese riots; the
Buckland Riot, the
Lambing Flats Riots, as well as general discrimination and prejudice. However, there were many establishments in this period that would have a lasting effect on the history of Australia and the history of Chinese in Australia. One of these establishments were the Chinese camps, which most often, later, became
Chinatowns in Australia. There was also the establishment and the consolidation of power for Chinese societies, many of these are still active in Australia today. These societies provided support and community for the Chinese in the colonies. After the gold rushes the numbers of Chinese living in the cities swelled and their businesses and industries contributed much to growth of Melbourne and Sydney in the late 19th century.
Mei Quong Tart and
Lowe Kong Meng were prominent business figures in Sydney and Melbourne respectively. However, there were very few Chinese women migrating to Australia. At one point in the 1860s the numbers of Chinese in Australia was around 40,000. Of these, it is believed only 12, were women. This gender imbalance meant that Chinese men married women of European descent but many had it in their hearts to return to China. by the
Melbourne Punch depicts the
anti-Chinese racism in Australia which was one of the driving forces behind the push for federation. standing in the bushland with two
borzoi dogs in the bushland of
Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, 1930s
Anti-Chinese racism among white Australians also strongly contributed to the push for the
federation of Australia. Some of the first Acts of the new federation would establish the
White Australia Policy. This policy made it almost impossible for anyone new to migrate from China to Australia. After federation the population of Chinese in Australia steadily declined. Despite the declining numbers people with Chinese heritage still played their part in Australian history. There were over 200 people with Chinese heritage who fought for Australia in
World War I, including the decorated sniper
Billy Sing. A similar number fought for Australia in
World War II. The final end of the White Australia Policy from the 1960s saw new arrivals from the Chinese diaspora and for the first time significant numbers from non-Cantonese speaking parts of China. The first wave of arrivals were ethnic Chinese
refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s. This was followed by economic immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s, whose families often settled in the capital cities. New institutions were established for these arrivals and old ones such as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce revived, while numerous Chinese language newspapers were once again published in the capital cities.
Ethnic Chinese settlers from Peru immigrated to Australia following the Peruvian
dictatorship of Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces of Peru in 1968. celebrations at
Box Hill, Victoria, home to one of the largest Chinese Australian communities in the country After the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests, then-
Australian Prime Minister,
Bob Hawke, allowed students from China to settle in Australia permanently. The aftermath of
May 1998 riots of Indonesia saw sizeable influx of
Chinese Indonesians fleeing persecution in their home country for Australia. Since the 2000s, with the rapid development of
China's economy, there has been an explosion in the number of immigrants from China, which have frequently been Australia's largest source of new immigrants since 2000. In 2015–16, China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) was the second largest source of
immigrants to Australia behind
India. China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) is now the third largest foreign birthplace for Australian residents, after
England and
New Zealand. ==Demographics==