The Australian government can again advocate for its interests at the apex of political power in Beijing, while it’s likely to just be a matter of time before Australian exporters can again access the Chinese market free from trade restrictions.
As well as welcoming these striking signs of success, we should also plainly acknowledge the Albanese government’s failure to act against Chinese officials implicated in severe and systematic human rights abuses.
Australians overwhelmingly want to follow the lead of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union by imposing targeted sanctions on Chinese officials implicated in human rights abuses.
The Australia-China Relations Institute has found that support for “travel and financial bans on Chinese officials and entities involved in human rights violations” sat at around 65 per cent in 2022 and 68 per cent in 2023. Meanwhile, the Lowy Poll found that 82 per cent of Australians supported such sanctions in 2020.
Trade is only one excuse the Australian government has for disregarding human rights abuses. Domestic political posturing is another one (all of our government’s treatment of refugees, for example). And keeping up appearances with our international allies who have endorsed the human rights abuses for their own domestic political reasons is a third (e.g. our endorsement of the genocide & apartheid being undertaken by Israel).