British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese react during the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Apia, Samoa, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft/Pool)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected accusations from Beijing that his country is “plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes” after an Australian diplomat led a group of Western nations in renewing concerns about human rights violations in China.

“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,” Albanese told reporters on Thursday as he arrived in the Pacific Island nation of Samoa for a Commonwealth leaders’ summit.

A day earlier, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian had denounced a statement made by 15 nations to the United Nations General Assembly this week — presented by a top Australian envoy — underscoring “ongoing concerns” about “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang and Tibet.

James Larsen, Australia’s ambassador to the U.N., urged China to “uphold the international human rights obligations that it has voluntarily assumed” by releasing “all individuals arbitrarily detained in both Xinjiang and Tibet, and urgently clarifying the fate and whereabouts of missing family members.”

The statement amounted to “political manipulation under the pretext of human rights,” Jian said Wednesday.

Singling out Australia for rebuke, Jian said the country was “long plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes” and should resolve its own affairs rather than criticizing China’s.

Albanese said Australia would “always stand up for Australia’s interests” and had raised the matter of human rights with Beijing in a "consistent and clear way.”

The Chinese government launched in 2017 a campaign of assimilation in the northwestern Xinjiang region — home to 11 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities — that has included mass detentions, alleged political indoctrination, alleged family separations and alleged forced labor among other methods.

More than 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic minorities are estimated to have been held in extralegal internment camps. The Chinese government at the time described the camps as ” vocational training centers.”

The U.N. Human Rights Office in 2022 found accusations of rights violations in Xinjiang “credible” and said China may have committed crimes against humanity in the region.

Larson in his statement also cited “credible” reports of China subjecting Tibetans to coercive labor, separation of children from their families, erosion of cultural and religious freedoms, and detention for peaceful political protests.

He urged “unfettered and meaningful access” to Xinjiang and Tibet for independent observers.

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

In response, Jian decried what he said was Australia’s hypocrisy, citing the country’s treatment of refugees, immigrants and Indigenous people.

“Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan and other countries during their military operations overseas,” Jian said.

Jian appeared to be referring to allegations that elite Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians between 2005 and 2016, which led to a number of senior military officers recently being stripped of their medals. Australia's past policy of refusing to allow asylum seekers who attempt to reach its shores by boat to ever settle in the country is also often cited by China as tarnishing the country's standing on human rights.

Beijing’s economic ties with Canberra are thawing after several years of official and unofficial trade blocks. But the relationship remains tense on matters of human rights and geopolitics as China becomes militarily more belligerent in the Asia-Pacific region and Australia grows closer to its Western-intelligence sharing partners, particularly the U.S.

Chinese Premier Qiang Li said during a state visit to Australia in June that he had agreed with Albanese to “properly manage” their nations’ differences.

However Justin Bassi, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said China's rebuke this week was an “overreaction" intended to warn Canberra to pull its punches.

“By limiting all but the most unavoidable criticisms of China to statements delivered by officials rather than ministers, Australia was offering Beijing a compromise,” Bassi said. “Instead of taking that as a win, China is biting back hard.”

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Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk contributed to this report from Melbourne, Australia and Keiran Smith contributed from Newcastle, Australia.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024