‘There’s a duty to confront evil’: the Irish politicians standing up to China

When it comes to Ireland’s relationship with China, “we are an outlier in our timidity”, says Senator Michael McDowell.

The former justice minister claims that the Government’s reluctance to challenge Beijing on its treatment of minority groups and its other repressive behaviour shows that “trade trumps human rights”.

He is not alone in his concerns. McDowell is one of a dozen Irish politicians who have joined an international group of legislators calling for stronger responses to China.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac) was launched in June last year. Ireland recently became the 20th legislature to add representatives to its ranks, joining the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan and the European Union among others.

Ipac says its mission is to “assist legislators to construct appropriate and co-ordinated responses” to China, with a focus on issues such as human rights, security strategies and the “standards of the rules-based order”.

Ireland’s co-chairs for Ipac are senators Malcolm Byrne of Fianna Fáil and Barry Ward of Fine Gael. Eleven Irish senators have signed up, as has the independent TD Michael McNamara.

McDowell says China has to be confronted because it is “savage to its own minorities… savage in respect to people who try to express any freedom of expression within China. It’s a totalitarian regime.”

The Irish Government is “always concerned about butter and beef and cheese exports and milk powder exports to China”, he says. “They’re afraid of the Chinese retaliation.”

He also accuses the Department of Foreign Affairs of trying to “appease” China and refrain from criticism. “The most we ever do is say we are concerned about X or Y,” he says.

The “proof of the pudding” of the Government’s timid approach could be seen in the case of Irish businessman Richard O’Halloran, who has been unable to leave China for more than two years after becoming embroiled in a commercial dispute, McDowell says.

‘Going into reverse’

The senator says that for some years there had been a widespread belief in western political circles that as China’s middle class developed, civil liberties would follow. Nations were encouraged to go easy on Beijing and open trade connections.

“But that seems to have gone into reverse now. And it doesn’t seem to be paying off,” he says. “China is looking for domination now, instead of just merely partnership.”

Malcolm Byrne says that it is important for Ireland and Europe to engage with China but “if you are friends with somebody, then you should be honest and point out where there are flaws and issues”.

“What we are seeing is a genocide against the Uighur people. We’re clearly seeing the repression of human rights and freedom of the press in Hong Kong. There are escalating tensions in the South China Sea… Whether it’s in Tibet, concerns around China’s deployment of technology, issues surrounding academic freedom, the detention of Richard O’Halloran.”

Xi Jinping’s Chinese government is known for being extremely sensitive to criticism and often reacts with trade sanctions against its critics, something Barry Ward says that he and the Irish Government are “acutely conscious of”.

“You don’t want to cut off your nose to spite your face, because the reality is most of us want to maintain quality relationships with the Chinese people, want to trade with Chinese people, want to learn from the Chinese people,” he says. “I know that there are parliamentarians who are reluctant to call out China because of the effect it might have on economic or cultural links.”

Ward says that Ireland is in a unique position, diplomatically and internationally, both as a member of the UN Security Council and as a state that does not directly compete with China militarily, commercially or industrially.

“I just think we’re in a better position to speak truth to power and to speak to them on a certain level without being a threat or trying to compete with them,” he says.

Michael McNamara, Ipac’s sole member in the Dáil, says he became concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang when he visited the province 17 years ago, and the situation had dramatically deteriorated since.

“I think there’s a duty to confront evil. I think if you’re putting vast numbers of a population in correction camps, I just think that is wrong and I prefer not to live in a world where people are silent in the face of things like this,” he says. “I’d like to be able to explain to my child that I wasn’t completely silent in the face of a cultural genocide.”

McNamara says he does not know if other TDs will join Ipac. One legislator, speaking off the record, said “frontline TDs joining something like [Ipac] would likely not be encouraged by the Government”.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said membership of Ipac was “purely a matter for individual TDs and senators and their respective political parties”.

Ireland enjoys generally positive relations with China, and views it as an important partner for trade and investment, he said, while adding that challenges exist because China had different “values and interests”.

‘Cold war mentality’

“The rise of China at a global level has also seen an increasing emphasis on our political relations and Ireland has been active in responding to challenges posed by the differences in our values and interests, and in the approach that China takes towards international relations,” the spokesman said.

The Chinese embassy in Dublin said the Irish members of Ipac were “entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts”.

“We urge this handful of politicians to respect facts and basic norms of international relations, discard their Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, and stop exploiting various issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs and political manipulation for selfish gains,” a spokesman said.

“We hope that they will find ways to contribute constructively to international solidarity and co-operation.”

Last month China imposed sanctions on a number of British MPs who are members of Ipac, a retaliatory move after the UK, EU, US and Canada imposed sanctions on Beijing over its human rights violations in Xinjiang.

Facing growing international criticism, China increasingly points to human rights abuses in other countries, arguing that these nations have no moral authority to criticise other jurisdictions.

“We have dark shadows in our past as well,” Byrne says. “The difference is we air them, and we talk about them and we deal with them and, where appropriate, we confront those issues and compensate people who are wronged.”

McNamara says human rights should be on the agenda “not just in visits to Beijing, but also visits to Moscow, visits to Washington, visits to Brasilia — take your pick of countries in the world.”

Luke de Pulford, Ipac’s international co-ordinator, says he hopes more TDs and senators will join the alliance.

“I think there is a degree to which the kind of obfuscation which you might have seen from the Irish Government around China, and from the UK government and others, it just is not going to be sustainable any longer,” he says. “[The situation] is now just too bad for people to just turn the other way or to pay lip service to human rights. It’s got beyond that now.”

The other Irish members of Ipac are senators Mary Seery-Kearney, Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael); Lisa Chambers, Diarmuid Wilson, Erin McGeehan (Fianna Fáil), David Norris, Rónán Mullen (Independent); and Vincent Martin (Green)