China's swoop on Hong Kong autonomy 'utterly offensive'

Former foreign ministers Gareth Evans and Alexander Downer have criticised the Chinese government's proposed national security crackdown on Hong Kong, labelling it "utterly offensive" and warning it is shredding Beijing's global standing.

Australia has been quick to protest the communist regime's latest effort to silence dissent, with the Morrison government raising its concerns with Chinese officials both in Canberra and Beijing, adding to the strains in the bilateral relationship.

Coalition and Labor backbenchers are also speaking out against China's threat to Hong Kong's autonomy, with a bipartisan group of 20 federal and state MPs adding their name to a joint protest letter signed by more than 200 parliamentarians and policymakers from 23 countries.

But Australia is yet to follow the American lead and threaten trade sanctions if the new laws are implemented.

Professor Evans, who was foreign minister between 1988 and 1996, expressed alarm at China's actions.

"Beijing's actions in Hong Kong are utterly offensive to the spirit and letter of the 1997 handover agreement, and Australia is totally right to call them out," he said.

"While we and others in the West have been overdoing anti-China rhetoric in recent times, and can and should be striving for a more balanced and productive relationship – particularly by pursuing common ground on global and regional public goods issues, like climate change, arms control and indeed pandemics where it has generally been a constructive player – when China does overreach externally as in the South China Sea, or behave thuggishly internally, we are right to push back, and should not be overly fearful of the consequences.

"The wolf-warriors might rail, but China respects consistency and firmness – and it certainly does not want to inhibit resources trade crucial for its own economy."

Mr Downer, who represented Australia at Hong Kong's 1997 handover ceremony from Britain to China, said the national security law was a "deeply worrying threat to One Country, Two Systems from Beijing now".

"China’s leaders are doing huge damage to China’s global standing," he said.

We must support the notion of what is understood to be the Hong Kong system continuing at least until 2047.
— Bob Carr, former foreign minister

Another former foreign minister, Bob Carr, said Australia was entitled to make the point to preserve Hong Kong's autonomy but believed "clumsy" diplomacy from Canberra would undermine those efforts.

"Australia has got a legitimate interest in Hong Kong's future because of the very large Australian community in Hong Kong and the people from Hong Kong who live in Australia, but well beyond that we must support the notion of what is understood to be the Hong Kong system continuing at least until 2047," he said.

"My own view is that enlightened diplomacy from Beijing would have made a commitment to continue the Hong Kong system beyond 2047. At the very least it would have been desirable for Beijing to have lived with a continuation of low-level protest, contained by professional policing measures, without overriding the territory's laws with Beijing's statute.

"Australia is entitled to press this point. We would be better able to do if we had some lines of communication with Beijing and hadn't chosen to be so clumsy with our diplomacy over the last three years."