CANBERRA, Australia, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Australia will stand firm to defend freedom of speech even if it upsets China, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has said.
The minister's comments come after the arrival home of the country's ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, amid a growing diplomatic war of words that has soured relations to a 10-year low.
The situation has become what some Australian media have called the government's China Syndrome, referring to the 1979 U.S. nuclear power station disaster movie.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd conceded earlier that relations between the two countries were "full of changes" and that there would be further ''bumps in the road." He told Australian media that Raby had been recalled to brief ministers and ''take stock'' of recent events.
China took issue with a visit by invitation from Australia of Chinese political activist Rebiya Kadeer, an ethnic Uighur Muslim who now lives in the United States but who the Chinese leadership calls a terrorist.
Kadeer, 62, is also leader of the World Uighur Congress, which according to the Chinese government newspaper Global Times is "an umbrella organization for those engaged in terrorist activities to separate Xinjiang from China and form the so-called East Turkistan."
The Global Times also points to "anti-China rants" by Australian media that support Kadeer.
Beijing blames Kadeer for inciting ethnic unrest in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China's largest province, in July. Nearly 200 people died and more than 1,600 were injured in street fighting between the mostly Muslim Uighurs and the increasing number of Han Chinese settlers.
To show their displeasure at Australia's invitation, two Chinese directors boycotted the prestigious Melbourne International Film Festival in July over the screening of a documentary about Kadeer. The Chinese government was also displeased because Kadeer addressed the National Press Club in Canberra, Australian media reported.
To drive home their point, the Chinese downgraded their attendance at a summit of Pacific nation leaders in Australia from a vice foreign minister to a junior envoy.
Adding to the strained relations is the arrest this month of four employees of the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.
China is holding the employees for stealing national trade secrets and taking bribes. Stern Hu, the head of Rio's iron ore operations, has been charged with commercial spying. The company pulled out of a deal that would have seen it receive billions of dollars of investment from mining business Chinalco, the Aluminum Corp. of China.
But the worst could yet come if tensions threaten a new major business deal -- the largest in Australia's history, analysts have said.
PetroChina, Asia's largest oil company, has signed a $41 billion deal to buy 2.25 million tons of liquefied natural gas from the as yet undeveloped Gorgon gas field off Australia's northwest coast. The gas would come from a part of the field leased by ExxonMobil. The 20-year deal could create up to 6,000 jobs.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has thrown a verbal olive branch to the Chinese in an effort to calm the war of words and ensure that PetroChina doesn't become collateral damage.
"'We value the capacity of someone to come to our country and say things even if we do not agree with them," Smith told Australian media.
"And a range of things which Ms. Kadeer said, including arguing that the western (Chinese) provinces should be under separate autonomy, is not something that the Australian government agrees with.''
