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Australia, China at odds over Uyghur activist

AP

Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress, speaks at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra, 11 August 2009. Chinese diplomats are entitled to object to Kadeer’s public appearances in Australia, but must do so politely, Australia’s government said Tuesday.AP/Mark Graham/Australia

An exiled Uyghur activist accused China on Tuesday of trying to use its economic clout to dampen criticism of its human rights record, while Australia’s foreign minister said Chinese diplomats who opposed her trip should mind their manners.

Rebiya Kadeer addressed the National Press Club in the capital, Canberra, on Tuesday despite objections by a Chinese diplomat, who the club said made it clear that Beijing did not want her to speak.

She thanked the club for ignoring China’s bullying and thanked Australia for resisting “enormous pressure” from Beijing to deny her a visa to visit the country where she was making a series of public appearances.

China has repeatedly and strongly objected to Kadeer’s trip, raising tensions between Canberra and Beijing even as ties are stretched by the case of an Australian mining industry executive being detained in China on suspicion of spying.

Beijing accuses US-based Kadeer of inciting recent riots between Uyghurs and members of the dominant Han Chinese group in western Xinjiang province that killed at least 197 people and injured more than 1,700. She denies it.

In her speech, translated by an aide acting as an interpreter, Kadeer said China has been using its economic clout to try to intimidate nations into softening criticism of China’s human rights record.

“It is a fact that the Chinese government has been exerting enormous pressure on Western democracies because of its huge trade, in order to dampen down the Uyghur and Tibetan issues in all these different countries,” Kadeer said.

China is Australia’s largest export market, buying billions of dollars worth of coal, iron ore and other raw materials each year, and maintaining strong economic ties is in both countries’ interests.

Australia also has active communities that criticise Beijing for harsh rule in Tibet and repressing human rights elsewhere, and that want Canberra to take a stronger stand.

Kadeer criticised the Chinese government for its use of its “economic and trading power to threaten other countries and impose its authoritarian will.”

“The international community, Western democracies, should not be intimidated by such threats because China needs them more than the Western democracies need China,” she said, citing China’s appetite for Australian raw materials as an example.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said earlier that foreign diplomats were entitled to voice the position of their governments on any issue but that they must do so politely.

Smith said his department received a complaint from a city mayor about the way Chinese officials voiced their opposition to part of Kadeer’s visit to Australia, and had called in Chinese officials to discuss it.

“Embassies’ diplomats, officials are entitled to put views in Australian society,” Smith told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “They (their views) can be put firmly, but they need to be put politely and appropriately.”

Copyright © 2009 AP

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