share_windows This article appeared in Crikey on August 10 2026.
“In which country was the person born?” The wording of question 17 in the 2026 census has seen the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) inadvertently stumble into a political quagmire.
The possible answers for this question are listed as: Australia, England, India, New Zealand, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa and Other (specify).
Just seven countries of birth are named. If this choice had been based on the number of Australians born in these countries, the list would instead be (in order of population size) Australia, India, England, China (excluding SARs and Taiwan), New Zealand, the Philippines and Vietnam, or perhaps there are bureaucratic or other restrictions that limit the number of named countries to seven.
The glaring absence from the first list is mainland China, which accounts for some 732,000 Australians — about the same number as the Philippines and Vietnam combined. So, why is China not listed?
This question has animated Chinese-language social media platforms such as RedNote and WeChat. One user posted a video of himself saying, “I’ve just done the census online, and I’m deeply unhappy about it.” Another posted a screenshot of his feedback to the ABS, and also made this comment:
“I’ve just done the census. Like five years ago, China is not on the list on the ‘origin of birth’ question, so I had to click Other and manually fill it in. What a joke: even though China is the third biggest source of migration to Australia, the name is hidden inside Other. Even Vietnam is listed. Who will believe it if they say this is not intentionally discriminatory?”
This is clearly not a new problem. The ABS dropped China’s inclusion as a possible answer to the question back in 1991, but despite the Bureau’s attempt to explain and justify its decision, there is clearly still considerable confusion and dissatisfaction among many Chinese Australians.
Here is how the ABS explains its thinking:
“The countries listed are the most commonly reported countries of birth in the 2021 census (for example, Australia, England, India). China is not listed as a separate response category. This is to encourage people to write in China, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan in the ‘Other (specify)’ box.”
One major problem with this is that it faces the risk of being interpreted as a politically motivated decision, rather than a choice based on statistical or bureaucratic categories. It unnecessarily risks alienating Chinese-Australians, many of whom are already feeling marginalised and “othered” by the current local and global political environment.
To be explicitly relegated to the “Other” category, rather than being listed as one of the nation’s largest minorities, may give many Chinese-Australians symbolic — as well as substantial — reason to doubt that their tenure on Australian citizenship and residency is as secure as that of other migrant populations.
Moreover, from a statistical point of view, this othering of Chinese-Australians in the census form may backfire, and end up giving the ABS less fine-grained data rather than more. This is because some respondents may have strong political views about whether Taiwan — or Hong Kong, or Macau — should be included or excluded as part of China. For example, those who believe that Taiwan was, is and always will be an integral part of China may just answer “China”, or “Greater China” if they are not specifically given “mainland China” and “Taiwan” as listed options.
Han Hee is an Australian lawyer and migrant from Malaysia who has lived in Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong for more than 10 years. He runs a large WeChat group dedicated to discussions of news and current affairs, especially those involving Chinese-Australians.
Speaking to Crikey, Hee said he understands why emotions are running high on this issue among group members, and is acutely aware of the political implications of the wording of the census form:
“A strong pro-US administration will use China, HK, Macao and Taiwan as options, whereas a strong pro-China administration will put China as an option and leave those not satisfied to use ‘Other’ and write whatever they want.”
But given that Australia should aim to steer a middle course, he believes the best way to tackle this issue is to list China (excluding Taiwan and SARs), and to list the excluded options separately.
But if the problem is simply screen real estate (rather than politics, or some other factor), another option would be to make the “Other” category a drop-down box with all the other main locations for which the ABS hopes to get specific data listed by name.
Even though Hee concedes that the design of the census may not set out to discriminate, he thinks it does have discriminatory consequences as it “targets Chinese residents specifically and unreasonably”. He believes that the ABS, perhaps out of laziness or lack of care, has failed to “take this matter seriously and with proportionate effort”; they “could have done better but chose not to”.
Dongdong Yang, chairman of the Australia China Business Seminar, provided detailed feedback to the ABS about the census form, and has also subsequently posted his feedback in many WeChat groups.
In Yang’s recent WeChat post, he points out that the approach is logically inconsistent and lacks uniform standards:
“The ABS has explained that this measure is ‘to encourage people to write in their own responses’. However, if other major migrant countries do not require such ‘encouragement’, why is the Chinese community singled out to go through an extra step?”
He also believes, rightly or wrongly, that the design of the census privileges convenience over the need to reflect the statistical majority of Australia’s China-born population:
“The convenience of survey design should not come at the cost of accurate identification for a major ethnic community; otherwise, the scientific allocation of public resources in healthcare, education, and other areas will be directly compromised.”
Because of these problems, Yang worries about the credibility of the census, and thinks the sense of belonging of Chinese-Australians could be undermined.
The ABS’s intention could simply be to gather demographic data as accurately and efficiently as possible, and in accordance with the Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), which the ABS revised as recently as November last year. But bureaucratic intentions often have unintended political consequences, in this case because the question of who is a Chinese-Australian can be devilishly complex.
As if this is not already perplexing enough, while many Chinese-Australians with a PRC background feel “othered”, for some non-mainlanders the census becomes an occasion to assert their ethnic identity and to distance themselves from China. For instance, some critics of the CCP in the Hongkonger, Uyghur and Tibetan communities argue that their own distinct identities should be reflected in the census.
The message here seems obvious: to avoid accidentally triggering a cascade of serious problems of social cohesion, and to minimise the risk of estranging key sectors of Australian society, the ABS needs a complete overhaul of its thinking in relation to the politics and practicalities of which countries of origin are listed in the census form, and which are consigned to the “Other” category.
