Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a privilege to be able to speak on this motion. I thank the member for Menzies for moving it. As we know, there have been mass human and cultural genocides throughout history, often targeted at minority groups within dominant cultural communities. Of course, with my own Armenian heritage, we have a legacy that our first Anzacs bore witness to on their arrival into Gallipoli. They saw the human consequences of the Armenian genocide. Representing the third largest Jewish community in Australia, in Goldstein, I am very familiar with the ongoing memory and legacy of the holocaust. We need to remember that in remembering genocides it is part of the journey of stopping them into the future.

As I said right at the start, genocide doesn't just involve a human dimension, though that is critical, it can also involve a cultural dimension around erasing the memory, the traditions, the culture and the values that underpin societies. In Xinjiang the Chinese Community Party is engaging in a form of cultural genocide against the Uighur people. It's that simple.

The vicious and inhumane tragedy occurring in that province due to the actions of CCP makes for difficult reading for anybody who is interested. An investigation by the associated press has revealed that the CCP is regularly subjecting hundreds of thousands of Uighur women to forced sterilisation and abortions to lose the next generation. A report by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, published last year, describes how the CCP is seeking to erode and redefine the culture of the Uighurs to erase their memory and traditions and what they can then hand on to future generations. This has involved the destruction of 16,000 mosques in Xinjiang since 2017. Another report by ASPI details how between 2017 and 2019 over 80,000 Uighrs were forcibly transferred to labour camps for ideological brainwashing on an industrial scale.

The United Nations' genocide convention establishes that genocide does not necessarily require the immediate mass destruction of a group. The elimination of a people can occur in a number of ways, including those documented in the growing volume of Xinjiang investigations and reports. What is critical is the intent about whether there is an action being taken to remove the memory, the legacy and the future of a people. To me, it is quite clear that it is the intent in the case of the Uighurs.

The atrocities in Xinjiang are being implemented at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party with the specific intent of destroying the Uighurs separate cultural and political grouping within China. ASPI has described this as an agenda to render them subservient to the Chinese nation. These events serve as another reminder that, when political systems seek to enforce rather than earn their legitimacy, the end result will be a human tragedy and suffering for those today and, of course, for those in the future.

The CCP asserts its legitimacy by claiming that a Han-centric unified China has existed continuously for 5,000 years with broad consent and cooperation. The CCP argues it's responsibility to continue this tradition to ensure stability and prosperity in China. It's something that many people would question, whether that's those of Tibet, the good people of Hong Kong or potentially other territories in the future. It's a narrative that's particularly difficult to reconcile with the vastly different lived experience of minority communities throughout China, and Xinjiang in particular. Xinjiang was first subject to Chinese political authority since the mid-18 century and has witnessed significant periods of independent self-government while under Chinese rule.

The atrocities are incapable of respecting differences in spontaneous associations among free people, because they depend on the centricity of the state and lives of citizens in a rigid, national image imposed from above: a classic reminder of the horrors of communism, but particularly centralised authority. It's the job of the people to conform, not for the government to reflect their people. What we see is the merciless indulgence of a political elite who consider the separate identity of the Uighurs as a threat to the Han-centric image of China. These events are not an anomaly. In Hong Kong we have seen the CCP build its sovereignty on oppression, rather than cooperation and consent, including through the flood of people. The CCP's response to protests against extradition laws has seen police violence, attacks on the media, the imprisonment of 47 democracy activists and, of course, the removal of local elections. Now, only people who are conforming to Beijing's will are even allowed to stand for office.

For the good of humanity, it's the responsibility of free democracies and the international community to unreservedly call these events out and to call for an investigation, because free countries promote secure societies and human liberty as the biggest proponent of peace.

See this speech in context