China has suspended a joint human rights programme with Australia and blocked two parliamentarians from visiting the country as diplomatic ties between the two nations continue to flounder.
Canberra said on Monday it had not been able to reach agreement with Beijing on continuing a two decades old technical dialogue, which is aimed at advancing human rights reform in China. The programme was suspended in August, shortly after Australia joined 21 other countries in calling on China to end its mass detention of the mainly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang in a letter to the UN Human Rights Council.
The suspension, which was first reported by The Australian newspaper on Monday, follows a decision by Beijing to bar two Australian government MPs, Andrew Hastie and James Paterson, from attending a study tour to China next month due to their previous criticism of the Chinese government.
“We had looked forward to learning from the Chinese people about their culture, history and perspective during this visit,” said the MPs in a joint statement.
“We are particularly disappointed that the apparent reason why we are not welcome in China at this time is our frankness about the Chinese Communist party.”
In response, the Chinese embassy said the Chinese people did not welcome those who “make unwarranted attacks” and “wantonly exert pressure on China”.
The deterioration in relations between Australia and China, which is the nation’s largest trading partner with two-way trade worth A$213bn ($145bn) last year, can be traced back to 2017 when Canberra announced new laws targeting foreign interference in Australia and subsequently banned Huawei from providing 5G equipment.
The moves followed concerns expressed by Washington, Australia’s closest strategic ally, about Beijing’s aggressive island-building programme in the contested waters of the South China Sea. Beijing’s detention of Yang Hengjun, an Australian writer, this year also coincided with a greater willingness in Canberra to speak out publicly on China’s human rights record.
Human rights groups have praised Canberra’s stance but the souring of diplomatic relations between the two countries is alarming some business leaders, former diplomats and politicians.
Paul Keating, a former prime minister and Labor party leader, warned on Monday that Australia’s current foreign policy lacked any sense of strategic realism and had failed to grasp the magnitude of the shifting power in Asia.
“The subtleties of foreign policy and the elasticity of diplomacy are being supplanted by the phobias of a group of national security agencies, which are now effectively running the foreign policy of the country,” he said.
Last week Beijing extended an anti-dumping probe into imports of Australian barley by six months in a move seen by many traders as politically motivated. Some Australian coal imports have also faced delays at Chinese ports over the past 12 months.
Geoff Raby, a former Australian ambassador to China and now a business consultant, told the FT that bilateral relations had sunk to their lowest level since diplomatic relations were established more than 46 years ago.