I’m sorry you had this experience, but it’s true. Australians are often deeply racist. However, Chinese are too. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not the main issue.
One issue Australians have is their vastly inferior (in general) level of rhetorical facility on these matters, as compared to Chinese. We just don’t have the quality of critical thought that many young Chinese are displaying. This sounds ridiculous, I know, but again it’s true.
If Australia is going to effectively think about, and eventually negotiate, its place in the changing order, its citizens need to get a lot more cosmopolitan, critical and perceptive about international affairs.
For educated Chinese, I suspect thinking critically about international perceptions and power (and possibly even relations) is almost second nature: it makes sense to have it as a National pastime for an emerging power.
Australians need to recognize the necessity of this for their own position, too, and work to let go of the limiting policy dogma that continues to constrain and limit their political thinking.
It may not be too useful to promote Paul Keating as a role model for this type of critical faculty as his stances will provoke too much opposition for people to want to admire or follow him. Yet the truth is his kind of contrarian policy thinking is exactly more of what Australian needs, even if of not exactly the same flavor.
Unfortunately, we’ve been a victim of our own success, and our economic buffer will conceivably for the midterm, insulate us from the urgent need to develop the critical faculties that are so essential to our long-term future.
In other words, people can say “why do I need to rethink it? we’re doing great.”