Canberra pushes back at Chinese attempt to reshape global rules

Australia has accused Beijing of attempting to shake up the UN Human Rights Council.

Julie Bishop with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Buenos Aires.

Australia has accused Beijing of attempting to shake up the UN Human Rights Council, issuing a strong statement rejecting a Chinese government view of human rights that lacked “accountability and transparency”.

The statement, released in March, was in line with Australian attempts to counter China’s multi-pronged attempts to rewrite the post-World War II order and follows revelations in The Australian that Beijing had walked away from a rights dialogue with Canberra.

In a sign of continuing differences between Australia and China, Defence Minister Marise Payne yesterday told The Australian she condemned Beijing’s deployment of H-6K bombers to Woody Island in the South China Sea.

“We urge all claimants to refrain from destabilising actions, including the deployment of advanced military equipment to disputed features,” Senator Payne said.

A report from the US-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative warned that the move opened the door to “eventual deployments to the Spratly Islands farther south” which meant northern Australia was in range.

“Future deployments to the Big 3 in the Spratlys would bring Singapore and much of Indonesia within range of even China’s lower-end bombers, while the H-6Ks could reach northern Australia or US defence facilities on Guam,” the report’s authors said.

At the same time, the Coalition is attempting to demonstrate that ties with China are improving after a messy public debate over Beijing’s foreign interference in Australia, with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop meeting her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ summit in Buenos Aires in what she characterised as a “warm discussion”.

Australia was elected to the UN Human Rights Council in October and its membership came under the microscope on the weekend when it was the only country apart from the US to vote against an Arab-led motion to set up an investigation into Israel’s handling of recent clashes in Gaza.

But Australia has also been hostile to Chinese and Russian motions. In late March, China was successful in passing a motion calling for a “mutually beneficial co-operation in the field of human rights”.

The motion stressed the role of the autonomy of nations in deciding how human rights are policed, instead of the UN’s emphasis on universal rights as understood after WWII.

When they abstained, Australian diplomats said they were “concerned that [China’s resolution] might attempt to influence reform of the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms … But reform should be conducted in a considered manner as part of the HRC review and not through a resolution”.

Australian diplomats said the resolution attempted to “embed new, undefined concepts into the human rights discourse” and lacked a focus on accountability and transparency. “We regret that the language on technical assistance and capacity-building lacks recognition of the importance of monitoring, accountability and transparency.”

The passing of the motion — with the help of countries such as United Arab Emirates and Venezuela — demonstrates how the international order is shifting.

Australia voted against all five resolutions that focused on the rights of Palestinians and Israeli settlements at the latest normal session of the council in March.

La Trobe international relations professor Nick Bisley, writing about the results of the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index, said international rules would increasingly be set by countries that do not share the same values as Australia.