37. Australia, the PRC and human rights - with Jocelyn Chey and Richard Broinowski

The ACRI Podcast

As the Australia-China bilateral relationship has grown since the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in 1972, discourse on the relationship has tended to be dominated by economic and strategic issues. Human rights are a part of the relationship that sometimes struggles to get the attention given to developments in the economic and strategic realms. Yet it is no less pressing. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seeks greater participation in, and leadership of, the global order through both ‘hard’ power and ‘soft’ power. However, its growing international clout correlates with growing concern from members of the international community around adherence – or lack thereof – to international standards of human rights. How does the PRC view human rights, and how has the treatment of human rights issues in the PRC evolved over time? Last year, governments and observers like Human Rights Watch noted with significant concern reports on the mass internment of up to a million ethnic Uighurs in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The PRC’s opaque legal system has been another source of perturbation, with PRC and non-PRC citizens subject to arbitrary detention, often with basic rights – such as that to legal representation – denied. How have Australian responses to such issues evolved? And going forward, how should Australia manage dialogue with the PRC on human rights issues? This episode of the ACRI podcast brings together two former Australian career diplomats to discuss these questions: Jocelyn Chey, currently a visiting professor at the University of Sydney, and Richard Broinowski, a prominent public affairs commentator. James Laurenceson, Deputy Director of the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) hosts the episode.