“Australian soldiers have committed serious crimes in overseas military operations such as Afghanistan.

“These Western countries ignore their own serious human rights problems, but point fingers at other countries, which fully exposes their hypocritical nature on human rights issues.”

Asked about China’s comments as he touched down in Samoa, Albanese stuck closely to his government’s often-repeated line when probed about conflicts in the relationship.

“We, of course, will always stand up for Australia’s interests. And when it comes to China, we’ve said, we’ll cooperate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must, and we’ll engage in our national interest, and we’ve raised issues of human rights with China. We’ve done that in a consistent and clear way,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS Summit in Russia where he pledged that the “friendship between China and Russia will continue for generations”. Australia has joined the US, UK and other Western nations in condemning China’s role of enabling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by supplying technologies to Moscow that can be used to manufacture weapons.

But Australia has stopped short in matching its allies’ decision to sanction Chinese suppliers.

Loading

Earlier this week, Australia’s ambassador to the UN James Larsen led a joint statement of Western countries in raising “ongoing concerns about serious human rights violations in China”. Larsen delivered the statement on behalf 14 other countries, including the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and Japan.

“We urge China to uphold the international human rights obligations that it has voluntarily assumed,” Larsen said.

“This includes releasing all individuals arbitrarily detained in both Xinjiang and Tibet, and urgently clarifying the fate and whereabouts of missing family members.”

Australia’s UN statement noted that two years ago the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had concluded that serious human rights violations had been committed in Xinjiang, and that the arbitrary detention of the Uyghur muslim-minority groups “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”. China rejected the findings as “illegal and void”.

Loading

“Transparency and openness are key to allaying concerns, and we call on China to allow unfettered and meaningful access to Xinjiang and Tibet for independent observers, including from the UN, to evaluate the human rights situation,” Larsen said.

“No country has a perfect human rights record, but no country is above fair scrutiny of its human rights obligations.”