Australia’s opposition leader Peter Dutton says that while he supports Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the centre-right coalition is staying “realistic” about what China is doing.
It comes after Albanese met with Xi earlier in the week and raising a host of issues with Beijing, from Xinjiang’s human rights issues to the detention of Chinese-Australian nationals, and the possible removal of trade sanctions that have stopped $20 billion (US$13.5 billion) worth of goods entering the China market.
The Coalition leader said on Sunday that China “has been difficult” with Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Britain, Australia, and many other nations over the course of recent years.
“Australia will always stand up for her values, and we’re never going to compromise on that,” Dutton said of the Coalition, noting the Turnbull government’s decision with Huawei for Australia’s 5G network.
“Let’s be realistic about the situation,” Dutton said. “It was only a few days before the meeting [with Albanese] that Xi was dressed in his army fatigues, prepping his people for conflict.”
His comment was echoed by opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham, who suggests that Australia should impose sanctions against China under the Magnitsky law.
The Magnitsky Act enables the government to implement economic sanctions against individuals or businesses deemed to be human rights offenders. Currently, the Australian law only applies to Russian individuals engaged in serious corruption and human rights abuses.
“Australia is a long way behind like-minded countries and comparable nations when it comes to actions in relation to Iran,” he told the ABC Insiders program.
“Many have expressly said they don’t want sanctions that could hurt the Iranian people in terms of economic sanctions, but they do believe that there are many cases for targeted individual sanctions to be applied, as we’ve done in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
“Any verbal agreement with Xi should not be relied on or taken seriously given the Chinese leader’s long record of saying one thing and doing something else,” he told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Rather than seek a verbal understanding with Xi which means very little, President Biden’s focus should be to discuss ways to work more closely with Asian allies and partners to constrain China’s strategic options and deter Beijing from considering the use of force to realise its objectives.”
