Dreaded Asian invasion a myth

By GRAHAM REID

Eric Liu, chairman of Auckland's Chinese radio station, laughs loudly at the idea of making a million dollars in New Zealand.

Much as he likes the quality of life in his adopted homeland, this recent migrant from Taiwan is clear-eyed about business prospects in the smaller economy here.

He sees New Zealand as "a new horizon," where the lifestyle is good and there is less pollution than Taipei. But, although it has been relatively cheap to establish his businesses - first an internet provider, now the radio station - he knows that to make more than just a comfortable living, hard work and commitment are needed.

His opinion is echoed by Dr Ming-teh Cheng, also from Taiwan, now running a feijoa farm in Henderson. For him, too, coming here four years ago was a lifestyle choice.

Their comments about New Zealand - friendly people, peaceful society, but not easy to do business - are typical of many recent Asian migrants.

Three years ago, in the face of prevailing social myths about Asian immigration and against a backdrop of inflammatory rhetoric from New Zealand First leader Winston Peters about the number of migrants, Dr Manying Ip, of the University of Auckland, released a paper pointedly entitled "The Inv-Asian That Never Was: what the latest profile of the New Zealand Chinese community tells us."

She argued that efforts to attract Asian entrepreneurs and business people had been unsuccessful.

Today, with figures a fraction of what they were five years ago, attempts to encourage Asian migrants appear to have conspicuously failed.

Approvals for migrants from Taiwan fell from 12,325 in the 1995-96 business year to 664 the next year. In 1999-2000, only 344 were approved.

Figures from China have shown a relentless decline (from 5444 in 1995-96 to 2118 last year). Migrants from Hong Kong last year were 10 per cent (259) of the number approved four years earlier.

And many who have come have found the business climate difficult and unwelcoming.

Dr Ip's research exposed as fiction the idea that Asian business migrants received preferential treatment, and that Chinese migrants were well off. Her study revealed that 8 per cent of Asian migrants were unemployed and a large percentage worked in positions not commensurate with their qualifications.

Despite widespread perceptions that wealthy Asians were settling in large numbers, Dr Ip also noted that migrants bringing between $500,000 and $700,000 accounted for fewer than 4 per cent of the total number of Asians since 1992.

Certainly, the numbers had increased. In 1992-93, there were 2316 from China, and that more than doubled two years later.

But if New Zealand was recruiting Asian money to kickstart a stagnant economy, someone had failed to tell the Immigration Service. By far the highest approval rates for migrants were for South Africa (85.8 per cent) and Britain (84 per cent). The highest rate for Asians was for Singapore (79 per cent).

Raw numbers, however, show that over an eight-year period up to this year, migrants from China totalled over 30,000 and from Taiwan over 28,000.

Migrants from South Africa in the same period totalled 23,693. The greatest number came from Britain - 39,763.

But if the Government had attempted to open a money tap from Asia, it has now been turned off.

Reasons are not hard to find.

Last month, Dr Ip presented a paper in Seoul, South Korea, called "Chinese Business Immigrants to New Zealand: transnationals or failed investors?" In it, she addressed the recent decline, particularly looking at reasons for the October 1995 change of policy.

That revision, she says, made a subtle but significant change of emphasis from the financial capital migrants brought to the quality of migrants themselves. The new direction was economic growth, but not at the expense of social stability.

Dr Ip quotes a briefing paper prepared by the Government in 1997 stating: "Economic benefits must go hand in hand with a stable, positive society ... immigration will increase New Zealand's diversity and vitality, however it must also maintain our society's high level of social cohesion."

As Dr Ip notes: "By implication, the pre-1995 immigrants, the business migrants among them, were seen as potentially upsetting to a stable, positive society, and were somehow disruptive of New Zealand's social cohesion."

She argues that the Government overreacted to public fears of an Asian invasion and effectively killed migration.

The decline was the result of a number of factors, but chief among them was the requirement for all adult non-principal immigrants (those aged over 16) to deposit a $20,000 bond as a guarantee they would pass an English test.

This was perceived as a deliberate hurdle for Asians.

A policy shift in the category of business migrants also emphasised an applicant's personal attributes (experience and qualifications) rather than the amount of capital being brought.

Not to be discounted was the volatile political climate after Mr Peters' anti-immigration speeches, which were widely characterised as anti-Asian and were certainly reported in Taiwanese papers, according to Richard Shih, director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Auckland.

New Zealand First's policy was described as "the modern face of anti-immigrant discrimination" in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal.

For our faltering economy, it was not a case of any publicity being good publicity.

Acknowledging the downturn in Asian migrants, especially in the business category, the Government relaxed its policy at the end of 1998.

It scrapped the English-language bond, replacing it with a lower entry standard or a cheaper "pre-purchased English training" scheme, allowed for a new "entrepreneur category" and offered a Long Term Business Visa for people wanting to establish a business but not live here permanently.

Yet recent statistics indicate that these have not had any significant effect.

And Asians relocating here come to a country where attitudes to migrants are confusing.

A 1996 survey by Massey University's Marketing Department offered apparently contradictory results: 60 per cent of respondents believed in a reduction in immigration; 50 per cent believed migrants were good for the economy.

Dr Ip's most recent paper quotes a 1998 National Business Review poll taken when migration from Taiwan and Hong Kong was negligible. Despite this, the percentage of New Zealanders feeling there were too many Asian immigrants remained high.

Asian business people note numerous problems in starting enterprises here. The economy is small, the distance from international markets means high costs for imports and exports, and New Zealand has high labour costs and active unions seldom encountered in Asia.

The minefield of council bylaws and the vagaries of the banking system - "five days to clear a cheque, I don't understand that," laments Mr Shih - are also cited.

While the country may have wanted Asian migrants, there was little coordinated assistance for business people once they were here.

"While Asian business people are skilful middlemen," says Dr Ip, "too many New Zealand products are controlled by quasi-official monopolistic boards. The export of wool, dairy products, fruit and timber - the country's most valuable agricultural produce - are run by bureaucrats who have no intimate interest in promoting sales or diversification."

Producer boards, she says, are inflexible and lack sympathy for innovative suggestions from suppliers of primary products and merchants wanting to sell products overseas.

Dr Ip acknowledges that Asians note a number of points in favour of doing business here - the honest and friendly people, the ease of starting up (low rents, no bureaucratic corruption and extortion), and suchlike.

But, these, she says, are social, not economic and business factors.

"To have friendly customers or even honest partners cannot offset unfavourable economic realities."

Most Asian businesses are small to medium-sized enterprises, tend to be family centred, and depend on personal relationships and personal credit. More than half cater primarily to Asian customers; consequently the downturn in Asian migration will have a direct, lasting impact on the established community.

If the business climate is not conducive to enterprising business people, it is hardly surprising that some Asians, notably Taiwanese rather than those from the mainland, have moved to more promising environments such as Australia, or have returned to the familiar, high-growth economies of their homeland.

Taiwan has enjoyed growth of over 6 per cent this year, Mr Shih observes.

As Augie Fleras and Paul Spoonley noted in "Recalling Aotearoa: indigenous politics and ethnic relations in New Zealand" - "Immigrants want what immigrants have always wanted: to put down roots in their new country, to be free of excessive Government or bureaucratic interference, to be accepted for what they are and they have to offer without fear of ostracism and discrimination."

Mr Shih, who came to New Zealand three years ago, confirms without prompting that Taiwanese seek a better and different education system for their children.

He also notes that some who migrated to Australia have returned because they find New Zealanders generally more hospitable.

Whether we can offer an equally hospitable business environment is the question now needing to be addressed.

The immigrants - a Herald series

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