News.com.au, 28 August 2020

Below is an article published by News.com.au.

A senior Liberal MP has been recorded slamming “totalitarian” China and its “egregious” human rights abuses in a private Zoom call with party members earlier this month.

Former Defence Minister Kevin Andrews’ comments, published by The Age today, reflect some of the strongest language used against the Chinese Communist Party by a government MP to date.

“I have no problems whatsoever with the people of China, my problems are with the most complete totalitarian regime that we’ve seen probably on the face of this earth from the regime of Xi Jinping,” he said.

“Its abuse of human rights is egregious. A million or more Uighur people in Western China are locked up in so-called ‘re-education camps’. We’ve seen what’s happened in Hong Kong recently … a complete trampling of the agreement between China and the UK (to allow greater freedom).

“We’ve seen aggression in the South China Sea, we’ve seen more repression in China, we’ve seen this bellicose nationalism from Xi Jinping.”

Mr Andrews was speaking at a digital forum with Christian church leaders on August 13 as he attempted to rally support to fend off a preselection bid in his Melbourne seat of Menzies, according to the newspaper.

The Liberal elder – the current longest-serving member of the House of Representatives – was fielding questions about Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ controversial decision to sign his state up to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week unveiled new legislation that would effectively tear up Victoria’s multimillion-dollar deal with Beijing.

The Belt and Road Initiative, Mr Andrews said, is essentially about China “projecting” power into other countries, in some cases buying ports and in others paying for facilities and infrastructure in developing nations, which then “become essentially indebted to China”.

“The Australian government view is that this was totally inappropriate and the clear advice to Victoria was that they should not sign up,” Mr Andrews said, describing it as “great propaganda” for China.

“China can say, ‘Look here, a state in Australia’ – they probably won’t even say a state, they’ll just say, ‘Australia has signed up for the Belt and Road Initiative’, and so it plays into the strategic view that China is propounding around the world,” he said.

Asked by a call participant if the Victorian Premier had committed “high treason”, Mr Andrews said the Chinese regime posed a grave threat and “if we don’t stand up to it now it’s going to do a lot more damage to the people of China and to the rest of the world”.

“There are lots of dangers here and what Dan Andrews has done is totally unacceptable,” he said. “The Australian government is right to call it out and stop any untoward investment in Australia.”

The comments come amid rising tensions between Canberra and Beijing, and while echoing concerns expressed by Australia and the US in a joint statement last month, are more forceful than the usual diplomatic rhetoric.

Mr Morrison typically avoids calling out Mr Xi or the CCP.

Chinese diplomats have been much more outspoken.

In a rare speech at the National Press Club earlier this week, China’s deputy head of mission Wang Xining lashed out at Mr Morrison for backing an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, saying the decision had “hurt the feelings” of the Chinese people.

“All of a sudden, they heard there was this shocking proposal coming from Australia, which is supposed to be a good friend of China,’’ he said.