Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to assure the Senator that I am making the point in engagements. He has raised these issues. China has no issue with discussing human rights because it takes its robust position, a position with which we do not agree. The idea that we do not mention these things is not how it works.

Last week, President Higgins and the Taoiseach availed of their meetings with Premier Li to formally set out Ireland's concerns on the human rights situation in China. Specifically, the Taoiseach raised concerns about the treatment of minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang, as well as the national security law in Hong Kong. He also raised the case of Jimmy Lai, whose trial is ongoing. I take on board what has been said by Senator Byrne and others about justice in that case. He is facing a very difficult situation and there is a need for a fair trial and so forth. I raised our human rights concerns with my counterpart, the foreign minister, Wang Yi, during my visit to Beijing last November and at a more brief meeting in Munich at the UN security conference some months prior to that. This bilateral engagement is reinforced by Ireland’s approach at the United Nations, including the Human Rights Council.

As Senator Byrne said, during China's universal periodic review, this week Ireland highlighted the continued repression of civil society in China, including harassment of human rights defenders; restrictions on freedom of expression, including in Hong Kong; and the treatment of ethnic and religious groups, including in Xinjiang and Tibet. We also raised the widespread discrimination against members of the LGBTQI+ community. The situation in Xinjiang resonates with the Irish public, the Government and the Oireachtas.Ireland has called on China to implement the recommendations of the assessment report from the former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on the situation in Xinjiang, the findings of which continue to be of grave concern to us. I have raised this twice with the Chinese foreign Minister, Wang Yi. The Chinese robustly respond in respect of Michelle Bachelet's report. That is an issue of ongoing disagreement and is contentious.

As Senators will be aware, the term “genocide” has a particular meaning under international law. Recognition of events definitively as genocide involves an analysis of both facts and law. Ireland follows the practice of recognising genocide only where this has been established by a final decision of a court in Ireland, or by a judgment of an international court, or where there is international consensus on the matter. Accordingly, while acknowledging the strength of feeling of the House on Xinjiang and recalling important debates held here on this issue, the Government is unable to share the characterisation of acts in Xinjiang as genocide. We want to ground them properly in terms of the international court system.

That does not apply just to China. We take international legal forums seriously. We have a case before International Court of Justice at the moment in respect of Palestine and the occupied West Bank. We have made a legal submission. The Attorney General will present to an oral hearing in February on that. That took serious sustained work by our legal people. Likewise, we have made a very substantive submission on the legacy Bill. We take these forums and the basis on which these issues are decided seriously.