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Samuel Armstrong from The Henry Jackson Society,a think-tank that successfully campaigned for the British to block China's Huawei from supplying its 5G network,anticipated Britain's allies would increasingly signal that they too were willing to boycott the Beijing games.
"A decade ago we were repeatedly told that Beijing's human rights record would improve after it hosted the Olympic Games in 2008,"Armstrong said.
"Instead,China used the Games to woo and distract the world from its ever-increasing surveillance state.
"As Australia's experience has shown,standing up to Beijing,rather than kowtowing,is the only behaviour China understands."
Raab's comments came as 39 nations,including Australia,the United Kingdom and the United States rebuked China at the United Nations over the"political re-education camps"in Xinjiang and its crackdown in Hong Kong.
Germany's ambassador to the UN Christoph Heusgen delivered the statement on behalf of the countries and said they were"gravely concerned"by the human rights abuses,which includes reports of forced mass sterilisations of Uighur women.
"On Xinjiang,we are gravely concerned about the existence of a large network of'political re-education'camps where credible reports indicate that over a million people have been arbitrarily detained,"Heugsen told the UN.
On Hong Kong,Heusgen said the countries shared concerns that Beijing's new national security law for the region did"not conform to China's international legal obligations."
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The 39 countries called for China to allow"immediate,meaningful and unfettered"access to Xinjiang for independent observers and stop detaining Uighurs and other minorities.
Human Rights Watch's UN Director Louis Charbonneau said the countries had delivered a"stinging rebuke to China."
"These countries took a stand despite China’s persistent threats and intimidation tactics against those who speak out,"Charbonneau said.
"Their growing outrage signals the urgent need for the UN leadership to create an international mechanism to monitor and report on the increasingly dire rights situation across China."
China's embassy in the UK issued a short statement on Twitter - which is banned by censors in the country.
"Issues related to Xinjiang,Tibet and Hong Kong are China's internal affairs and have nothing to do with human rights,"the statement said.
"Some Western countries should discard their ideological prejudice and stop abusing the UN platform and provoking confrontation."
Separately,Pew Research Centre polling revealed unfavourable views of China have reached historic highs across 14 advanced economies with the highest dissatisfaction rating — of 81 per cent — recorded in Australia.
The centre said that in Spain,Germany,Canada,the Netherlands,the United States,the United Kingdom,South Korea,Sweden and Australia,negative views had reached their highest level in the 12 or more years that Pew Research Centre has been polling in these countries.
This was up 24 per cent from 2019."This is also the largest year-on-year change in Australia since the question was first asked in 2008,"the organisation found.
The data showed that 86 per cent of Australians aged 50 or older held unfavourable views of China,compared to 68 per cent of Australians aged under 30.
"This also marks the first year in which a majority of younger Australians have an unfavourable view of China,"the centre said.