East by South: China in the Australasian Imagination

At a time when China is being seen as the next superpower, both sweatshop and powerhouse for the global economy, political courtship on the part of interested governments is accompanied by grassroots hostility. Such ambivalence is not new.

In the era of nineteenth-century globalisation, desire for exotic goods from the East was contradicted by a fear of the Yellow Peril breaching the borders of vulnerable colonies. This was unusually marked in the small settler communities of Australia and New Zealand, where distance from the imperial centre led to a uniquely potent campaign of state-sanctioned repression of Chinese immigrants.

The essays in East by South ¬ which range across such media as literature, music, film and fashion ¬ do more than simply examine contemporary and historic Australasian perceptions of China and the Chinese.
They also discuss ways in which people of Chinese descent have made significant contributions to the history of both countries. This is the first book to compare both Australian and New Zealand orientalism and its various alternatives.

Contributors Charles Ferrall, Mark Williams, Paul Jones, Noel Rowe, Tony Ballantyne, Timothy Kendall, David Walker, Paul Millar, Duncan Campbell, Jane Stafford, Henry Johnson, Ouyang Yu, Dugal McKinnon, Keren smith, Kylie Message, Phil Mann, Adam Lam, Peta Stephenson, Brian Moloughney, Wenche Ommundsen.