October 24, 2024
The Coalition has rejected Chinese accusations Australia is a nation plagued by “systemic racism and hate crimes”, as they labelled Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s response to the diplomatic assault as “bland”.
Mr Albanese on Thursday said Australia had been “clear and consistent” with China regarding concerns over Beijing’s human rights abuses, following comments from the nation’s foreign ministry that Australia was guilty of “hypocrisy” when it came to human rights.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Li Jian on Wednesday evening denounced Australia for criticising China publicly.
“Out of their ideological bias, Australia, the US and a handful of other Western countries stoked confrontation at multilateral platforms for their selfish political interest,” he said.
“Australia, long plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes, have severely violated the rights of refugees and immigrants, and left Indigenous people with vulnerable living conditions.
“Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan and other countries during their military operations overseas.”
When asked about the comments, the Prime Minister defended Australia and its right to stand up for its national interests.
“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” Mr Albanese told media after landing in Samoa.
“And we’ve raised issues of human rights with China. We’ve done that in a consistent and clear way.”
Despite this. shadow home affairs minister James Paterson said the response from the Prime Minister was “not good enough”.
“That is just his go to bland talking point when he has anything to say about the China relationship,” he told Sky News Australia on Thursday night.
The Liberal Senator said that while Mr Albanese should be able to “contribute more” than basic talking points, Australia would not be “taking lectures” from the Chinese Communist Party on human rights.
The CCP, Senator Paterson said, was a political party and government which had been accused of genocide and crimes against humanity by human rights groups and the United Nations for its repression and detainment of more than a million Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
“It's literally the last government in the world we would take a lecture from,” he said.
“It's a government which has persecuted the Falun Gong people, that has persecuted the Tibetan people, that has persecuted the people of Hong Kong, that persecuted the Christian church within China, and many other religious and ethnic minorities throughout the history.”
The Liberal Senator said the “key difference” between China under Xi Jinping and Australia was “we have a free and independent press” and an independent judiciary.
“We have active and vocal human rights groups, and we accept that our history has not been perfect and we strive to improve our country and make it better,” he said.
“We don't pretend that everything about our history is perfect.
“China under the Chinese Communist Party is very different. They're proud of what they're doing in Xinjiang against the Uyghurs and others and elsewhere.”
When asked specifically about China’s foreign ministry spokesman accusing Australia of war crimes in Afghanistan, Senator Paterson said “no one has been charged or convicted”.
The Liberal Senator said the serious allegations would be investigated as “any serious liberal democracy” would, which could not be said for China.
“The Chinese Communist Party could not be any different,” he said.
“They would never investigate their own soldiers about any misdeeds, in fact, they typically reward them.”
Senator Paterson referred to a propaganda video which promoted the “unsafe, dangerous and unprofessional” interactions with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Australian Air Force and Navy in the Yellow Sea to demonstrate his point.
“So we have a very different approach to China,” he said.
“We won't be taking lectures from the Chinese government.
