Politics can be cutthroat, but Australian businessman Jason Yat-sen Li wasn’t expecting to have his loyalty to his country questioned when he ran for a seat in the New South Wales legislative assembly in a mid-February by-election.
His sister-in-law and several others told him that they had been approached at polling stations by voters bandying rumors. “They’d say, ‘Jason is associated with the Chinese Communist Party,’ and things like that”, he tells TIME.
Li, whose parents came to Australia from China more than 60 years ago, isn’t sure who was behind it, nor does he think it was sanctioned by his rival’s campaign. But while he won the by-election, he does think discrimination against Chinese Australians—who make up just under 5% of the country’s 26 million population—is being exacerbated by the anti-China rhetoric that’s become a feature of the May 21 federal polls.
Scott Morrison, Australia's prime minister, arrives at the National Press Club in Canberra, Australia, on Monday, Feb. 1, 2021. "We remain committed to engagement with China", Morrison said...
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