Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, where thousands who protested for a freer China lost their lives. We cannot allow those who lost their lives that day and the following day to go down the Orwellian memory hole. I would like to acknowledge the work done by the Australian Embassy, who provided asylum for some of the leading dissidents of that period. I would like to particularly mention Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has served many years behind bars for his struggles toward an end of one-party rule in China. He is not alone.

I, like many, did not know the role of the Australian diplomats working at the embassy in 1989, but it was ably set out last night by Stephen McDonnell, the ABC's outstanding international reporter in Beijing for Foreign Correspondent, including the role of the Australian Ambassador to China in those days, Mr David Sadlier. Our representatives sought to give asylum to some people; even to get people out of the country. They provided critical footage to people outside China, in the wider world. The Australian embassy's media officer at the time was able to record certain video tapes of that time, which we have all forgotten about. He made his way through customs and passed the tapes to people in Hong Kong and then to the wider media. At a time, when the Chinese government had strict control of the media, the efforts of people like that made sure that what happened in Tiananmen was known all around the world. Our Defence attache later found 72 bullets in the apartments of Australian embassy officials. Very regrettable violence was even visited upon them.

One who declined our offer was Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic and philosopher. He was a very important person later on. Soon after, he decided to stay in China. He was imprisoned for two years and tortured. He was imprisoned three more times since then, including his current 11-year sentence. In 2010, while behind bars, Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize for 'his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China'.

To this day, the Chinese government continues to restrict information on events surrounding the Tiananmen Square massacre. It has never released a death count and has, in the past few weeks, made great efforts to censor any discussion of what took place. Even in social media in China there are attempts to censor what happened in those days. The government has gone so far as to arrest a Chinese-born Australian artist, Guo Jian. Friends of Mr Jian say that he spoke to the Financial Times about his sculpture of Tiananmen Square and his belief that the government is doing the wrong thing by trying to wipe out all traces of what happened. Mr Jian has been held for two weeks at a detention centre. According to human rights groups in China, over 50 journalists, lawyers, activists and artists have been detained in this harsh crackdown. The only place in China where the anniversary has been openly acknowledged is in Hong Kong where 200,000 people attended a candlelit vigil to remember the lives lost in the struggle for democracy in that great country with its ancient culture.

One recognises and welcomes the Chinese transition from a suffocating, command economy to its rather uneven market economy these days, with its growth rates and growing economic opportunities for Australia. The fact remains that the colossus of Asia is ruled, as I said in a speech on the 10th anniversary, by an unelected cabal of generally incompetent, overwhelmingly corrupt and deeply heartless men for whom it would appear no limitation of political behaviour is too embarrassing. At stake, of course, in this global drama of China's journey since 1949 is not just the question of freedom within China but also the threat the Chinese leadership poses to the rest of the world with its struggle to maintain political control in the face of inevitable countervailing forces moving towards greater pluralism and openness implicit in the widening freedoms of the market and in the capacity of modern telecommunications.

Many observers, not just me, fear some of the manoeuvres in the South China Sea and unilateral declarations of air zones over the East China Sea. The ruthless oppression of people in Tibet and Xinjiang is designed by the Communist Party leadership to divert the Chinese people from their own natural evolution to the kind of democracy that we enjoy here in Australia by engendering a nationalist backlash that will help them maintain their ruthless hold on power. I feel that the Chinese leadership poses that threat to the rest of the world because it wants to avoid those freedoms. I point particularly to their efforts in the internet and satellite TV. It is very important that Chinese people are able to transcend the best efforts of Big Brother, as George Orwell called it, and the totalitarian mindset to suppress the merest thoughts— (Time expired)