China has accused Australia of being “plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes” in retaliation to concerns raised about human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet.
Australia’s Ambassador to the United Nations James Larsen shared a joint statement with 14 other countries this week to urge China to uphold its international human rights obligations following findings of serious human rights violations.
But Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said those matters were China’s “internal affairs” and pointed the finger back at Australia.
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“Australia, long plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes, has severely violated the rights of refugees and immigrants, and left Indigenous people with vulnerable living conditions,” he said yesterday.
“Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan and other countries during their military operations overseas.”
Lin added that Australia, the US and other Western countries often turn a blind eye to the injustices at home.
“This says a lot about their hypocrisy on human rights,” he said.
“We urge Australia, the US and a handful of other Western countries to face up to and address their own severe human rights problems, stop the wrongful moves of politicising human rights issues and using them as tools, and play a constructive role in international cooperation on human rights.”
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was questioned on the comments in Samoa today, where he is attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
“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,” he said.
“We’ve done that in a consistent and clear way.”
In 2022, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded its assessment and found serious human rights violations had been committed against Uyghurs and other predominately Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.
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It found the scale of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of those people “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.
UN human rights treaty bodies have also detailed human rights abuses in Tibet, including the detention of some for the peaceful expression of political views and the separation of children from their families in boarding schools.
The joint statement raised concerns over both Xinjiang and Tibet and China’s lack of action to implement recommendations from the UN.
“No country has a perfect human rights record, but no country is above fair scrutiny of its human rights obligations,” the joint statement read.
“It is incumbent on all of us not to undermine international human rights commitments that benefit us all, and for which all states are accountable.”
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