It’s Australia, the government of which is half-CCP itself, so we can’t be too surprised that former Victoria premier and COVID tyrant Daniel Andrews would feel comfortable getting cozy with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on the occasion of Xi’s thugs-r-us united-front military parade.
Another Australian ex-potentate, former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, “sought to pre-emptively justify his possible attendance at the event (although he didn’t in the end),” reports the Australia director of Human Rights Watch, Daniela Gavshon. Gavshon regards the actions of these men as consistent with the Australian government’s “mixed messaging” on human rights (The Guardian, September 3, 2025).
During the Labor party’s last term and throughout this term, the government’s stated approach on China has been to “cooperate with China where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in our national interest”. The problems with this approach were obvious as soon as the policy position was first implemented, and they again became blatantly apparent this week….
Ring-fencing human rights into a discrete issue that is routinely marginalised is solidly in China’s national interests….
While the current Australian government has been consistently critical of abuses by Russia and North Korea, the same cannot be said regarding its approach to China. While condemning human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang at the UN general assembly last year, the Australian ambassador to China visited Tibet without issuing an official statement about the severe repression there while the Chinese government milked the visit for propaganda purposes, portraying it as an educational visit to teach the Australian ambassador about “Tibet’s development and prosperity”….
A government can’t half-care about human rights. The Australian government’s “disagree where we must” approach with China sets a precedent that human rights issues can be ignored when they get in the way, and by doing so validates the abusers’ interests ahead of Australia’s national interest.
When asked in parliament about the matter, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese couldn’t say that Andrews’s conduct was wrong.
The Australian pragmatists might argue that they are in fact pursuing the interests of Australia by pursuing trade deals with China at any price and by submissively and deferentially attending intimidatory celebrations of despots and nuclear bombs. If people like Andrews and the current leaders of Australia don’t regard caring about human rights as integral to the nation’s interests, maybe it’s because they don’t care about human rights very much to begin with.
Also see:
Sky News Australia: “Anthony Albanese ‘can’t say’ Daniel Andrews’ China attendance was wrong”
StoptheCCP.org: “On Courage: Our Ultimate Weapon Against the Chinese Communist Party”
