ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Colquhoun's suggestion that Britain's settler colonies had a significant role to play in the wider imperial drama that was coming together in East Asia during the late nineteenth century. Britain's Australian Colonies were swept by a wave of panic over Chinese migration. The Chinese were 'a powerful race', warned Parkes, 'capable of taking a great hold upon the country'. As attention turned towards Chinese migration, a residual bitterness hovered over Anglo-Australian relations. This rapid escalation in Australian anxiety and the subsequent demands placed on British diplomacy, were a marker of the Chinese question's capacity to flare up and dominate colonial politics, and to impinge on Anglo-Australian relations. The opening phase of a dramatic crisis over Chinese migration that swept Britain's Australian Colonies demonstrated the imperial significance of Australian perspectives on Anglo-Chinese engagement. Sir Henry Loch, Liu Ruifen encouraged the British Government to prevent the Australian situation from upsetting the course of Anglo-Chinese relations.
