KEY POINTS:
Auckland's Asian migrants are bracing themselves for a backlash against claims of an "Asian invasion" as this year's election draws closer.
Their numbers are tipped to rise further in a report due out tomorrow - but many Asians say the label is meaningless anyway.
The Asia New Zealand
Foundation report, Asians in NZ: Implications of a Changing Demography, is expected to say New Zealand will become even more Asian in the years to come.
Its release comes after 10,000 people, mainly Asians, took part in a march last Saturday, calling for stronger laws and tougher sentences in New Zealand.
Statistics New Zealand terms Asia to be from Pakistan in the west to Japan in the east, including Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics, and projected the Asian population in New Zealand to grow from 400,000 in 2006 to 790,000 by 2026.
But some say such statistics would just add fuel for political parties to use Asian immigrants as a "political football" to win votes.
"There are more similarities in chalk and cheese, than there are to a Sikh and a Chinese, but in New Zealand we are all put together as coming off the same boat," said Inderjeet Singh, a businessman.
Vincent Huang, a migrant from Taiwan who moved to New Zealand in 1993, said: "Every three years, without fail, we will be used as a political football because some political parties will tell New Zealanders that they are facing an Asian invasion."
New Zealand First coined the term "Asian invasion" in 1996, and in April, the party's deputy leader Peter Brown said in reference to a 2008 projection of the Asian population that "there is a real danger we will be inundated with people who have no intention of integrating into our society".
But Dr Hong-Key Yoon, a researcher who co-wrote a report, New Zealanders of Asian Origin, in 1996, said that even with New Zealand's changing demographics, an "invasion" is never going to happen, rather an "Asian infusion".
He said cultures would come together to form unique ones.
"In a way, New Zealand is developing an interesting direction - Asian-Kiwi, Asian-Pacific Island, Asian-Maori, this is how it will be," he said. "Intermarriage is a general principle or phenomena that the ethnic communities have taken up. Generally, new immigrants have a tendency to have a desire to integrate into the host country - it's not just over here, but also in other countries like America, the UK or wherever."
Dr Yoon, an associate professor of cultural geography at the University of Auckland, said Asians were more likely to socialise with locals than with other Asian communities, and the proof was in the greater number of intermarriages with Pakeha and Maori.
His co-writer Dr Raj Vasil, acknowledged that the term "Asian invasion" was unfair to many Asians who, like other migrants from different parts of the world, were equal in their search for greater opportunities overseas.
"That is not a problem created from them. Most of them come to Auckland and then you see a heavy concentration of Asians. The Government has to do something about getting them to move on to other places in New Zealand."
Dr Vasil said Asian migrants were unfairly pressured by many of the public to "do away" with their culture and to integrate into Kiwi culture.
Asian community leaders such as Francis Chai, the past president of the Malaysian Society, says "it is about time for New Zealand to progress in its understanding beyond lumping all Asians as a single group".
Manoj Tahal, president of the Waitakere Indian Association, says putting everyone in one group may "simplify things" but it "does no one any favours".
"When someone does something wrong, everyone known as Asian in New Zealand gets the blame."
