Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

On indulgence: on 4 June 1989 a long-running demonstration in Tiananmen Square in Beijing had a tragic end. Students and other citizens in Beijing and other cities had been demonstrating for weeks to honour former leader Hu Yaobang and to push for more openness in China and for political reform. China security forces entered the city and the square to force an end to that protest.

We do not know how many people died in Beijing that day. It was an event which affected the entire world and affected all Australians. The Australian position on the tragic events surrounding 4 June 1989 was made clear at that time and the Australian parliament expressed its outrage at what had happened and condemned ongoing repression of those who had participated in it. Our views have not changed. I note that the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has said in a statement that a public accounting of the victims of 4 June 1989 would help China heal and learn. I support the Secretary of State’s comments.

We recognise that there has been change in China in the past 20 years. The cities of China have been transformed as China has performed its economic miracle, an economic miracle of great consequence to the global economy as well as to the people of China itself. The life of the average person in China would be unrecognisable to someone from the 1980s. We recognise the advances made since that time in a number of areas, including economic and social developments as well as positive steps in terms of the rule of law and political rights. Of course, in our view there is considerable room still for further progress.

The protesters at the time were calling for less corruption, greater media freedom and greater openness in government, and these of course remain challenges with which the Chinese government today is grappling. It remains the Australian government’s view that it is in our national interest to further develop a broad and substantive relationship with China, and within the relationship the question of human rights is an important dimension. Australia continues to raise our concerns about human rights with China. I have raised these matters in the past with Chinese leaders and I will do so in the future. The government believes that continued engagement with China is the best way to support improvement in human rights in that country. I said in a speech at Beijing University last year that Australia wants a good and mature relationship with the modern nation of China and that it must be a frank relationship including those areas where we have substantive disagreements. I said then that such a relationship between our two countries involved engaging in principled dialogue about matters of contention, and that remains our position today.

Twenty years ago, in the week or so just prior to Tiananmen, I was in the square myself, not as a diplomat in Beijing but as a visitor to Beijing at the time. I remember walking through the square over several days and talking to students who were protesting. I talked to them about their aspirations and then, having left China, I saw what happened in those tragic events on 4 June. All people around the world were affected by these events, and they still have resonance today. This day, the 20th anniversary of the tragic events of 4 June 1989, is indeed a solemn occasion and we remember all those who lost their lives.

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