Rudd to raise human rights in China
Updated
Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd leaves today on a four-day visit to China for tomorrow's opening of the Olympic Games and early next week, he's off to South Korea and Singapore.
Mr. Rudd has said he will again raise human rights concerns in private meetings with China's top two leaders... amid claims that the Chinese Government had rounded up thousands of dissenting voices in the lead-up to the Beijing Games. This included members of underground churches, the banned spiritual movement Falungong, pro-Tibet monks and activists and pro-democracy intellectuals.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Professor David Kinley holds the chair of human rights law at the University of Sydney
KINLEY: Well I think there are various ways to skin a cat and I think that you can advance a cause by raising things privately and publicly and there are times and places to do these, I think it's consistent with what the Prime Minister has said before that he raises these issues regularly, privately and publicly and this is an event and an occasion which he believes he could raise things privately to some profit, and I would tend to agree with him on that.
LAM: But is the opening of the Olympics necessarily the best forum for Kevin Rudd to raise human rights issues with China?
KINLEY: Well maybe that's the issue about whether it should be publicly raised or not, that might be seen as overly contentious and the Prime Minister has a good deal of capital with the Chinese authorities and that may undervalue that or undermine that capital somewhat. To do it privately therefore might be seen as a good compromise. I do believe and I think he's correct in saying so that it should be raised, whether it's within the context of the Olympics or not this is not an event as we can clearly see from the outside and from inside China that is divorced from politics, as the Olympics is very much a political event these days.
LAM: Do you think the human rights message might be more palatable to Beijing coming from Kevin Rudd, him being a Mandarin speaking Sinophile?
KINLEY: Well I think that there's no doubt that that opens doors and smooths some feathers. I think he's seen as a neighbour, as in the region well he's obviously from the west speaking with a western perspective, and the fact that he's bringing it in the local language cannot but help, and I think that the way in which he's approached this with the Chinese before and the way in which he's going to do so this time is appropriate. And the fact that he is keeping to message, that he's going to raise these human rights issues and continue to do so, I think can only be seen as a good thing.
LAM: And Professor Kinley the well-known Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng has reportedly criticised Prime Minister Rudd for not doing much to advance human rights in China since coming to office, saying that Mr Rudd has lost the idealism of his youth when he was a Mandarin scholar. Is that a fair assessment in your eyes?
KINLEY: Well I think there's always huge differences between being out of power and in power and being a youth and being older. I think the fact that he is still raising these issues, still allowing the profile of human rights to appear whenever China talks or China visits on the horizon is keeping a hold on that idealism. To what extent he could achieve more in a bolder more dramatic way is of course questionable given the well-known Chinese attitude towards such bold comments or criticisms about China. This is a sovereign nation and a powerful one, and it is indeed involved in human rights abuses but there are various and many ways in which you approach that, and being bold at times is good, being more Machiavellian, more private is good at other times.
