Chinese Americans vs. Chinese Canadians

[Kamala's side hoe]

The Conservatives are saner (for lack of more politically correct term) than the GOP, and Canada’s immigration policies have arguably led to better political integration of visible minority groups in general. It probably also helps that Canada doesn’t have a history of racialized slavery and resultant political polarization.

To my knowledge the Chinese Canadian community is more disproportionately composed of wealthy Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kong emigres, international students in university, etc compared to Chinese Americans. This may skew perceptions of political leanings.

I don’t have any hard evidence but I suspect this is also true for Indian Canadians.

[Kamala's side hoe]

The Conservatives are saner (for lack of more politically correct term) than the GOP, and Canada’s immigration policies have arguably led to better political integration of visible minority groups in general. It probably also helps that Canada doesn’t have a history of racialized slavery and resultant political polarization.

To my knowledge the Chinese Canadian community is more disproportionately composed of wealthy Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kong emigres, international students in university, etc compared to Chinese Americans. This may skew perceptions of political leanings.

I don't think your explanation is wrong per se, but its a bit incomplete. It sort of gives the impression that Conservative appeal to Chinese Canadians is solely based on "keep taxes low, business friendly". You'd be surprised how much of Tory campaigning in Chinese communities is based on 'values'. The last couple federal elections, left leaning publications have obtained Conservative Mandarin or Cantonese campaign materials. Common themes include drugs, religious right stuff for Chinese Evangelicals, and implying the Liberals don't support immigrant values.

That wasn't really what I was going for. What I meant was- the political spectrum in Canada seems broadly shifted to the left (and the parties less ideologically polarized) relative to the US. This means that the Tories will seem more moderate on social issues and less Darwinian on economic issues than the federal GOP.

https://www.quora.com/Which-demographic-groups-tend-to-vote-for-the-Conservative-Party-of-Canada/answer/Emanuel-Leung

I don’t have any hard evidence but I suspect this is also true for Indian Canadians.

South Asians in Canada tend to vote left weirdly enough, albeit with a bit more willingness to swing right than their American counterparts. It's a bit odd given that Chinese Canadians vote ~ 20% more Conservative than the general population.

So my suspicions were correct.

[Kamala's side hoe]

In Australia within immigrant groups (not being racist) it seems if you're white Asain you're 60-40% liberal, if you're brown Asian you're 65-35% Labor. I do not know any substantial difference in their political views, though white Asians tend to be more anti-left.

It doesn't even align with the country's political views (exactly anyway), BJP/Sikh Nationalists supporting Labor and Chinese communists whose family members were supportive of the cultural revolution supporting Liberal.

Very interesting. Are Vietnamese and Filipino Australians more supportive of the Coalition or Labor? Also, is there a political generation gap among Asian Australians between immigrants and native-borns like in the US? I've definitely noticed one among Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indian Americans.

[Kamala's side hoe]

Thanks for the clarification, I’m afraid I don’t follow Canadian politics that closely. My intention wasn’t to smear social conservatives as “crazy” or out of touch, but rather to convey that the federal GOP is perceived differently from the Tories even if their stances on many issues are similar.

The important difference is that the Conservatives are objectively better at visible minority outreach. This could be due to lower political polarization in Canada, more cultural pluralism + progressive social attitudes(?), an emphasis on an “Anglo” identity as @Lu Xun pointed out (which likely appeals to many former Hong Kongers), and/or the existence of two other parties splitting the non-Tory vote.

[Kamala's side hoe]

The Conservatives are saner (for lack of more politically correct term) than the GOP, and Canada’s immigration policies have arguably led to better political integration of visible minority groups in general. It probably also helps that Canada doesn’t have a history of racialized slavery and resultant political polarization.

To my knowledge the Chinese Canadian community is more disproportionately composed of wealthy Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kong emigres, international students in university, etc compared to Chinese Americans. This may skew perceptions of political leanings.

I don’t have any hard evidence but I suspect this is also true for Indian Canadians.

The Chinese busineess immigrants have a high profile but most Chinese Canadians aren't that wealthy.  Places like Agincourt and Richmond are not "rich."  It's not that different from the US where it ranges from places like Flushing to upper middle class "ethnoburbs."

Indo Canadians are much more socioeconomically heterogeneous than in the US; there's a lot of blue collar Punjabis in Canada.  In the US, upper middle class Hindus dominate the Indian population.

Exactly. Wealthy business immigrants and international students from China should not be taken as representative of the broader Chinese Canadian community. If ethnic Chinese and Indians are more likely to vote for the center-right party (which was the case for both groups in the 2017 BC provincial elections), it's because there's less xenophobia on the Canadian right than the US right.

As with the US, the Canadian immigration system favors people who either have money or skills. The former Hong Kongers who were able to emigrate after the handover were probably more affluent on average and potentially had more to lose under PRC rule.

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In Vancouver the CPC has very much become "the Chinese party."

https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/chinese-christians-for-trump
"Chinese evangelicals who support Donald Trump come from a particular class of people with wealth to protect, says scholar Justin Tse."

[Kamala's side hoe]

According to Statscan, a majority of Chinese Canadians are of no religion.  But there's a sizeable evangelical element that is seemingly growing.

Thing is, outside of a few rural pockets, evangelicalism in Canada is largely an immigrant phenomenon.

It might be different in say, the suburban counties in California with large Asian populations.  Does integration into "blue state liberalism" inhibit the influence of evangelical churches among Chinese Americans?  

Nonwhite evangelicals are consistently more left wing than white evangelicals in the US. With Asian Americans this is actually true for all subgroups of Christianity. Can’t find the supporting Pew Research article at the moment. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/06/19/chapter-7-religious-affiliation-beliefs-and-practices/

Among my RL social network, there is a politically outspoken subgroup of US-born Asian-American “evangelical Protestant” Christians who are highly social justice oriented and largely align with the Religious Left. This group is relatively young and is mostly comprised of college students and recent college grads. The majority seems fairly apolitical, but not in a way that would make them susceptible to supporting the current GOP.