Australian parliament refuses to label China’s Xinjiang actions as genocide

Senate votes 33-12 against motion calling on China to end the ‘persecution of Uygurs’, following moves by US, Canada and Netherlands that angered Beijing

Rex Patrick says other senators are ‘all huff and puff’, accusing them of self-censoring on China’s human rights record and handing Beijing a ‘victory’

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A high-security facility near what is believed to be a ‘re-education camp’ where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, on the outskirts of Hotan, in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:07pm, 15 Mar 2021Updated: 5:07pm, 15 Mar 2021

Australia’s parliament has shot down a motion to recognise the treatment of ethnic minority Uygurs in Xinjiang as genocide, following declarations by the United States, Canada and the Netherlands that drew a furious response from Beijing.

The motion died in the Australian Senate on Monday after the governing Liberal Party-led Coalition and main opposition Labor Party united to block a formal vote on the proposal.

The Senate voted 33-12 against the proposed resolution, which would have probably placed further strain on the already fraught relations between Canberra and Beijing.

The left-leaning Australian Greens and several independents voted in favour of the resolution, which would have called on Beijing to end “torture and abuse in detention centres” and the “persecution of Uygurs and other religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China”.

Government and Labor Party senators said they did not believe the motion was the best way to deal with human rights issues, with Liberal Senator Jonathan Duniam insisting Australia continued to be “deeply concerned” by reports of enforced disappearances, mass detentions, and forced labour in Xinjiang.

Independent Senator Rex Patrick, who proposed the motion, accused the two main parties of handing Beijing a “victory” by self-censoring on human rights conditions in China.

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“While a number of Coalition and Labor members have self-styled themselves as ‘wolverines’ on the issue of China, today they have proved to be all huff and puff and nothing more when it came to calling out what is an immense crime against humanity,” Patrick said.