China is becoming more crucial to Australia's economic and multicultural future, according to the nation's preeminent demographer Bernard Salt.
Penning a piece in The Australian newspaper on Thursday, Salt said that the Chinese-born Australians now make up 2 percent of the general population, while the recent free trade deal between the two nations meant Australia is relying on the burgeoning Asian power's growing middle class to supplement its steadily-growing economy.
Salt said gone are the days where Australia looked to western nations to help prop its economy, instead a focus on the emerging middle class in nations such as China and India was much more valuable.
China is regarded to be so important to Australia's prosperity that Salt has warned lawmakers not to become over-reliant on China as any downturn in the Chinese economy would have disastrous effects in Australia's tourism, business and trade markets.
"Our economic interests and the source of our prosperity has shifted towards China to the extent that should China falter or change its relationship with Australia then large swathes of our economy would suffer," Salt wrote in The Australian newspaper.
According to Salt, China replaced Japan as Australia's leading trading partner when the global financial crisis was crippling established nations, while the recently-signed China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) will only propel China further into the "lead".
Also, while statistics released earlier in 2016 revealed that China was rapidly closing in on New Zealand as the nation with the most annual visitors to Australia, Chinese visitors were considered much more valuable to Australia's economy as they were outspending the Kiwis by a factor of 2 to 1.
But not only are Chinese tourists playing a key part in Australia's future, Chinese-Australians are now considered a mainstay in the nation's "population mix".
Salt said the cultural melting pot that is Australia was evident, as 7 million of the nation's 24 million-strong population were born overseas (30 percent), but China's prominence in this statistics was becoming more apparent.
"This (7 million figure) is high by international standards. At the last census, 42 percent of Sydney's population was born overseas. This proportion for Paris is 22 percent; for New York it is 29 percent," he wrote.
He said China was now the third largest contributor to Australia's population, with Chinese-born Australians making up 2 percent of the general population, behind just New Zealand and British-born Aussies.
"China is now the third most important contributor to the Australian population mix and may well replace the Kiwis within a decade to claim second spot," Salt said.
Bernard Salt is a partner at international consultancy firm KPMG and an adjunct professor at Curtin University's School of Business.
