An exiled Uighur activist accused China yesterday of trying to use its economic clout to dampen criticism of its human rights record, while Australia's foreign minister said Chinese diplomats who opposed her trip should mind their manners.
Rebiya Kadeer addressed the National Press Club in the capital, Canberra, despite objections by a Chinese diplomat, who the club said made it clear that Beijing did not want her to speak.
She thanked the club for ignoring China's bullying and thanked Australia for resisting “enormous pressure” from Beijing to deny her a visa to visit the country and make a series of public appearances.
China has repeatedly and strongly objected to Kadeer's trip, raising tensions between Canberra and Beijing even as ties are stretched by the case of an Australian mining industry executive being detained in China on suspicion of spying.
Beijing accuses US-based Kadeer of inciting recent riots between Uighurs and members of the dominant Han Chinese group in Xinjiang that killed at least 197 people and injured more than 1,700. She denies it.
In her speech, translated by an aide acting as an interpreter, Kadeer said China had been using its economic clout to try to intimidate nations into softening criticism of its human rights record.
“It is a fact that the Chinese government has been exerting enormous pressure on Western democracies because of its huge trade, in order to dampen down the Uighur and Tibetan issues in all these different countries,” Kadeer said.
China is Australia's largest export market, buying billions of dollars in coal, iron ore and other raw materials each year, and maintaining strong economic ties is in both countries' interests.
Kadeer criticized the Chinese government for its use of its “economic and trading power to threaten other countries and impose its authoritarian will.”
“The international community, Western democracies, should not be intimidated by such threats because China needs them more than the Western democracies need China,” she said, citing China's appetite for Australian raw materials as an example.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said earlier that foreign diplomats were entitled to voice the position of their governments on any issue but that they must do so politely.
Beijing's Canberra embassy Political Counsellor, Liu Jing, met management at Canberra's National Press Club last week and requested they withdraw an invitation for Kadeer to speak, the club said.
“Embassies, diplomats, officials are entitled to put views in Australian society, but when they put those views, those views have to be put appropriately,” Smith told state radio.
Liu told the press club it would be “regrettable” if diplomatic relations between Australian and China were harmed by Kadeer speaking there, club chief executive Maurice Reilly said.
“The press club and the board have a long-standing policy of 40 years or more that they decide who speaks at the press club, and they are quite free of outside influence,” said Reilly, confirming Liu's approach.
“We listened respectfully and we pointed out that China has a different social system to our social system,” Reilly said.
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