Year of the Horse presents new hopes for Liberals to finally claw back Chinese voters

share_windows This article appeared in Crikey on February 23 2026.

Question: What do Labor leaders have in common with their Liberal counterparts?

Answer: they were both donning red garments or accessories in Melbourne this weekend, and saying gong hei fat choi — or Happy New Year — to Chinese-Australians as they rang in the Year of the Horse.

Attending a festive event in Box Hill as part of the celebration of the Chinese New Year, Penny Wong revisited her tried-and-proven rhetoric of reminding audiences of her own Chinese family’s migration experience with the White Australia Policy. The newly minted Opposition Leader Angus Taylor made a speech at the same event, but it was the new shadow foreign minister Ted O’Brien who stole the show, speaking at length and in reasonably good Mandarin about the symbolism of the horse. Videos of his speech have been doing the rounds on WeChat since yesterday, and judging by the responses, many were impressed.

It is not surprising that O’Brien was trotted out to be the face of the Liberal Party. After all, the AFR’s Phillip Coorey dubbed him the 'Coalition’s chief China whisperer'. Before his political life, family business responsibilities took O’Brien to Taiwan for three years and then China for another three. And, repurposing Jane Austen here, it is a truth universally acknowledged that any Australian politician in possession of Chinese proficiency must be in want of an opportunity to use this as a weapon of mass endearment. 

Yet, it is also a truth not-so-universally acknowledged that just because a politician can show off their Chinese language prowess does not automatically mean they are a friend of China. Kevin Rudd is a good example. Nor does it mean that he or she works for a party that trusts the political loyalty of Chinese-Australians; cue Jane Hume and James Paterson.

The Liberals know that Labor is streets ahead in terms of winning the approval of Chinese-Australian communities. And, given the reopened wound caused by the appointment of Jane Hume as deputy Liberal leader, they now have even more catching up to do in rebuilding trust among Chinese Australians.

The Liberals may think that with Ted O’Brien in the portfolio of foreign affairs, they are in a better position to try a charm offensive. Indeed, appointing him as shadow foreign minister out of all the Liberal MPs may be a smart choice. But it is not in the least certain how many real political brownie points his Chinese proficiency will manage to score him. Interestingly, as soon as someone posted the video of O’Brien speaking Chinese, someone else in the same group posted another clip of him as then deputy opposition leader speaking last year on Sky News, criticising Anthony Albanese’s China visit, saying it 'speaks to weakness', and that Albanese was 'particularly weak on issues of security'. 

Exactly what these politicians said at the Box Hill event is of little consequence; what matters is the symbolism. The message is the growing power of Chinese- Australian voters: when invited by a local Chinese organisation, the Asian Business Association of Whitehorse (ABAW), to show up at the biggest Chinese community celebration event alongside the Chinese ambassador, in an electorate that has one of the largest cohort of Chinese-Australian voters, neither Labor nor the Liberals felt they could afford to take a raincheck.

Asked by Crikey if he was impressed by O’Brien’s Chinese speech, one Chinese-Australian living in a suburb next to Box Hill said:

If he could maintain this same serious and responsible attitude in his policy toward China, then Chinese Australians would certainly like him. But as an old Chinese saying goes, ‘Listen to what someone says but also observe what they do.’ Chinese people tend to be relatively rational and objective in their electoral choices; they do not have a fixed stance, and often make choices based on their own views and needs. What they want to see is that a political party has sensible policies and attitudes toward China.

Another Melbourne-based Chinese Australian agrees. She told Crikey that although Chinese Australians are a battleground for Labor and the Liberals during elections, in fact:

Many Chinese-Australians don’t join any political party. They cast their votes for the party that holds the long-term interests of this nation rather than the short-term interests of ‘party power’ or personal gains.

But she also echoed the earlier comment, that a party that is likely to win the approval of most Chinese Australians is one that can maintain a good relationship with China. This is because:

Most Chinese-Australians have close connections with China as they have families, relatives, friends, business or academic partners there.

Nevertheless, now all the festivities are done and dusted, the status-quo of Australia-China relations remains unchanged. When a reporter from Chinese television network Phoenix TV asked what 2026 will bring to Australia-China relations, Penny Wong said: 'We’ll continue to work to make sure we have good relations.' Having worked hard to stabilise the bilateral relationship, Labor is unlikely to change its China policy. As for the Liberals, Angus Taylor, having previously seen China as a security threat, needs to thinker a lot harder, as analyst Elena Collinson says:

Presenting a unified and electorally competitive alternative to Labor will require managing ideological breadth within the Coalition, spanning security-focused conservatives, economically liberal constituencies and more populist voters.

That said, Australia has had a bipartisan approach to managing relations with China, and this is most likely going to continue. Both sides will need to maintain and strengthen business ties with our biggest trading partner, cooperating in a few select areas, but persisting in seeing China as our biggest security threat, continuing to depend on the US to protect us, and hence pushing ahead with AUKUS.