On the defence, China lashes Australia’s ‘racism and hate crimes’

Singapore: China has accused Canberra of human rights hypocrisy, claiming it has a long history of “systematic racial discrimination and hate crimes”, after Australia’s top diplomat to the United Nations led an international effort calling out Chinese rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The tirade comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese landed in Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on Thursday afternoon, where China’s increasing assertiveness and influence operations in the Pacific are expected to loom large over the discussions.

China’s accusations, though not new and previously levelled at the Morrison government, demonstrate the ongoing volatility of the bilateral relationship even as the Albanese government has pursued a “stabilisation” agenda.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a welcome ceremony at the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, on Wednesday.Credit: AP

Australia’s ambassador to the UN James Larsen led a joint statement earlier this week, raising “ongoing concerns about serious human rights violations in China”. Larsen delivered the statement on behalf 14 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and Japan.

“We urge China to uphold the international human rights obligations that it has voluntarily assumed,” Larsen said.

“This includes releasing all individuals arbitrarily detained in both Xinjiang and Tibet, and urgently clarifying the fate and whereabouts of missing family members.”

In its furious response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian accused Australia of collaborating with the US and other Western nations to politicise human rights issues.

“Australia has long had systematic racial discrimination and hate crimes, seriously violated the rights of refugees and immigrants, and the living environment of indigenous people is poor,” Lin said during a press conference on Wednesday evening, responding to a question from Chinese state media.

“Australian soldiers have committed serious crimes in overseas military operations such as Afghanistan.

“These Western countries ignore their own serious human rights problems, but point fingers at other countries, which fully exposes their hypocritical nature on human rights issues.”

Asked about China’s comments as he touched down in Samoa, Albanese stuck closely to his government’s often-repeated line when probed about conflicts in the relationship.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is attending CHOGM in Samoa.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“We, of course, will always stand up for Australia’s interests. And when it comes to China, we’ve said, we’ll cooperate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, and we’ll engage in our national interest, and we’ve raised issues of human rights with China. We’ve done that in a consistent and clear way,” he said.

Justin Bassi, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said China’s “overreaction” was intended to make Australia pull its punches when it came to publicly criticising its human rights record, but should serve to ensure that “no such compromises should be made”.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS Summit in Russia, where he pledged that the “friendship between China and Russia will continue for generations”. Australia has joined the US, UK and other Western nations in condemning China’s role of enabling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by supplying technologies to Moscow that can be used to manufacture weapons.

But Australia has stopped short in matching its allies’ decision to sanction Chinese suppliers.

Australia’s UN statement noted that two years ago the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had concluded that serious human rights violations had been committed in Xinjiang, and that the arbitrary detention of the Uyghur Muslim-minority groups “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”. China rejected the findings as “illegal and void”.

Ambassador Larsen said: “Transparency and openness are key to allaying concerns, and we call on China to allow unfettered and meaningful access to Xinjiang and Tibet for independent observers, including from the UN, to evaluate the human rights situation.

“No country has a perfect human rights record, but no country is above fair scrutiny of its human rights obligations.”

It is not the first time China has launched a verbal attack against Australia. In 2021, it used a UN forum to target Australia’s record on war crimes, racial discrimination, immigration detention and Indigenous Australians. Chinese state media also regularly ran editorials making similar accusations of hypocrisy.

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