Just when China has given up its last ban on Australian exports, with our lobsters set to make a return to the world’s second biggest economy, Beijing is bristling over an Australian official at the UN ripping into our most important trading partner for human rights abuse.

With the country’s president, Xi Jinping, set to attend a BRICS conference in Russia, there was an instant return fire, with the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian, telling us to clean up our own backyard before criticising others!

This is what he hurled at us after James Larsen, our ambassador to the UN, called for independent observers in Tibet and Xinjiang. By the way, The Daily Telegraph reminds us that this request “…has been repeated for years by many nations.”

This is what China ‘bags’ us for:

1. Systemic racism.
2. Hate crimes.
3. Hypocrisy.
4. “Human rights issues at home, while pointing their fingers at others”.
5. Violating “the rights of refugees and immigrants” and
6. Leaving “Indigenous people with vulnerable
   living conditions.”
7. “Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan and other
   countries during their military operations overseas.”

As you can see, Beijing has done their naming and shaming homework on the wrong we’ve been accused of at home and abroad.

Most of these accusations could be hurled at most countries but China doesn’t like to be internationally called out for bad behaviour, especially with its treatment of their people in Tibet and Xinjiang. The world calls them out because it’s old world mistreatment of dissenters in their population that is reminiscent of the actions we associate with dictatorships, Nazism and hardnosed Communism of the 20^th century.

Prime Minister Albanese has told the Telegraph that his government won’t run away from calling out China’s human rights abuse, which is a strong position. But I guess our lobster exporters and other export businesses would’ve have hoped for a clear run after a four year ban that crippled a $700 million year market. “We’ve said we’ll co-operate 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,” Mr Albanese said.

Interestingly, the Telegraph also reports that the

Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said our ambassador’s comments
at the UN were “factual, balanced and considered”.

In fact, he bagged Foreign Affairs Minister
Penny Wong for going soft on China, if you compare her actions in power to her promises to bring Beijing to book before the last election.

Supporting the tough comments is journalist Cheng Lei, who spent more than three years in a Chinese prison on spurious charges. She said she believed Beijing’s comments were aimed at its domestic
audience.

She pointed to the get together of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the so-called BRICS group) in Russia, where the Chinese President will be in attendance, and the return fire against us is to show that Beijing won’t be castigated by the West.

It was clearly politics from China but it’s fair to say that our Government was playing politics with an election due in May and the economy’s cost of living problem isn’t helping garner votes.

Local Chinese voters might applaud us calling out China, though I suspect our exporters, and especially those looking forward to selling lobsters there soon, would have preferred less poking of the China bear. And it’s especially so with the threat of a possible President Donald Trump showing up in two weeks’ time. We all know he’s threatening a 60% tariff on Chinese imports to the US!

The last time we supported President Trump, Beijing slammed tariffs and bans on a wide range of our exports.