Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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11. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the steps his Department is taking to condemn and seek an end to human rights abuses in China. [19705/23]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland has a wide-ranging relationship with China, which covers political, economic, cultural, and people-to-people links. The Government takes a holistic approach to this engagement; Ireland's relationship with China is not considered separately from our values and priorities when it comes to human rights. In this context, Ireland consistently raises points of concern directly with the Chinese authorities, as a member of the European Union, and in appropriate multilateral fora.

In February this year, I met Wang Yi, China's most senior diplomat, who serves as the Director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission. At that meeting, I raised the assessment report on the situation of human rights in Xinjiang published by the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, underlining the importance Ireland attaches to engagement on this matter at the Human Rights Council. Ireland welcomed publication last year of the assessment by the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding human rights concerns in Xinjiang, and called on China to implement its recommendations and the subsequent Special Procedures recommendations. The assessment finds, inter alia, that the scale of the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.

My colleague, the Minister for Environment, Climate, and Communications, Eamon Ryan, visited China for St Patrick’s Day. In addition to a climate focus, he raised human rights during in his meeting with his counterpart in Beijing.

At the UN Human Rights Council in March this year, Ireland published a national statement for what is known as the Item 4 debate, underlining our concern regarding ongoing restrictions on civic space in China, and the treatment of minorities, including Uyghurs and Tibetans.

Ireland continues to monitor the human rights situation in Hong Kong, and to raise our serious concern regarding the implementation of the National Security Law there.

At the EU level, the Human Rights Dialogue with China is the primary formal framework through which Ireland and other Member States can engage China and urge it to take steps to improve human rights. In the dialogue on 17 February, the EU raised a number of issues including freedom of religion and belief, rights of minorities, freedom of expression and freedom from arbitrary detention.