Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee entitled China’s emergence: implications for Australia deals with the implications for Australia of the growing emergence and significance of China. It is a very vexed issue, I might say, and certainly not something that can be encapsulated in a 10-minute speech. It is hard enough to encapsulate it in a Senate committee report, and I do congratulate the committee for their work in putting it together.

I want to take the opportunity that this report provides to reinforce concerns I have expressed publicly a number of times, particularly on the issue of human rights abuses in China. It is very easy to get up on a pedestal and take the high moral ground and sound sanctimonious about human rights abuses in a particular country; people can always point to failings in their own country and problems with a range of other countries. There is no doubt that simple common sense, let alone real politics, coupled with the growing economic and political clout of China and the regional significance of China in our own part of the world mean that you cannot just blithely ignore these things whilst exploring how to deal with problems of human rights abuses.

There has been, of course, a very long association in Australia with people from China. There is at least some evidence that Chinese people were visiting northern Australia before European settlement in 1788, and certainly since the 1800s there has been a very significant Chinese presence in northern Australia and in other parts of the country. It is a source of some significant angst at some times in our nation’s history, partly to our shame. But it is a positive relationship in many ways and a very strong relationship. A huge number of people—a part of the Australian community—have links with China, both current and historic, and I for one certainly want to keep those as strong as possible and strengthen them. But, like any strong relationship, we do not strengthen it by turning a blind eye to significant problems. I just have to say that China’s human rights record is a significant problem.

As most senators here would probably be aware, a report was tabled recently that made very serious allegations about the practice of organ harvesting from within China. The report alleged that people’s organs were being taken from them following execution, particularly with regard to Falun Gong practitioners. That report has not been categorically verified, but I do not think it would be unreasonable to say that it has not been categorically disproved either. I note comments made by Mr Bowen in the other place last week with regard to this issue, and I would very much like to concur with those comments and associate myself with them. I believe that it is incumbent on the Chinese government to allow independent investigation of those claims.

One of the reasons why those claims cannot be categorically dismissed out of hand is that there are other things that we know are factually the case with regard to what happens in China at the moment. It is well recognised that China executes more people than every other country in the world put together, and that is even in terms of what is able to be verified. There is certainly some reasonably credible evidence that the number of executions is actually much larger than is commonly assumed. It is also beyond doubt that prisoners who have been subjected to the death penalty have their organs taken and used for transplants. It has also been pretty clearly verified that some of those transplants involve commercial transactions, with people coming from other countries to get transplants. I think that all of that is much more than just distasteful; it is very problematic.

Whilst different countries have different laws with regard to capital punishment and executions, and different countries have different laws with regard to commercialisation of organ donations and operations involving transplants, I think that, once you start connecting them together, you can get a very serious problem. If you add to that the pretty significant and verifiable problems with the adequacy of the justice system in China, I do not think it is particularly unreasonable for people to believe that the sorts of allegations that have been put forward have the potential to have merit and deserve to be properly and independently investigated. There is always a conundrum with regard to relations with other countries about what to do when there are significant problems with human rights abuses and how best to address them. I have been critical of the Australian government for being too soft with regard to the issue, but that does not mean that I think they should get out there with a megaphone. That could be equally counterproductive, if not more so. I recognise that it is a fine balancing act, but I think that we do need to look at ways to increase the pressure on China to improve its activities in this area.

We all know that the Olympics are going to Beijing in 2008 and, as part of assurances given to Beijing to be awarded the Olympics, there were some clear assurances given about improving the human rights situation in China. From what I see I am not overly convinced that there has been dramatic progress, and I think that until some of these issues and allegations are cleared up there really will have to be some question marks over the issue. I am not calling for a boycott of the Olympics—certainly not at this stage—but, frankly, I do think there is the potential for it to get to that stage, and I do think it has the potential to get to a circumstance where individual athletes may need to ask themselves some difficult questions. I do not say that lightly, because I know how hard our Olympic athletes work and I know that opportunities are quite rare to be part of the magic of an Olympic Games. But these are very serious human rights abuses in China, not just with regard to the organ-harvesting allegations, and I do not think we can rightly put them to one side because they are uncomfortable or difficult diplomatically. It does not mean that I underestimate the difficulties—I know they are very real—but nonetheless I think we need to look for ways to try to get more effective action to get improvements in this area.