British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the G7 - which Britain is hosting later this year,would devise “further mechanisms” to tackle the “indefensible practice of arbitrarily detaining individuals as leverage over another government”.
“The UK will not tolerate it,” Raab said in a statement.
Australia is one of 59 countries,including Britain and the United States,tojoin the network,amid the ongoing detention of Canada’s “two Michaels”,which was widely viewed as China retaliating for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in 2018 on behalf of the United States.
Meng is charged with several fraud offences and is accused of circumventing US sanctions against Iran. She has been granted bail and allowed to live at her multi-million dollar mansion in Vancouver.
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By contrast,Michael Kovrig,a former diplomat,and Michael Spavor,a businessman,have been detained in China for more than two years and have had no charges laid against them.
Earlier this month,Chinese authorities formally arrestedAustralian journalist and mother-of-two Cheng Lei,claiming she was supplying state secrets abroad.
Cheng had been detained since August last year. Foreign Minister Marise Payne said that Australian consular officials had last had access to Cheng,via video-link on January 26.
“We do expect basic standards of justice,of procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met,” Payne told 2GB radio on Monday.
Charles Parton,who was friends with Kovrig in Beijing where they both served as diplomats,launched a globalChristmas card campaign last year,to try and raise awareness of his friend’s plight in China.
He told The Sydney Morning Herald andThe Agethat the coalition was “thoroughly welcomed” and “long overdue”,but cautioned that it would have little effect on Beijing.
“China will see the declaration as aimed at itself,not least because its official birthday comes one day after the Canadian hostage Michael Kovrig’s own birthday,” he said.
“It will not speed the release of the two Michaels as the CCP will always put hard power before soft power,” he said.
Parton also noted that with 37 of the 59 signatories hailing from Europe,there were notable omissions from the list,including Russia,the bulk of the Middle East,Africa,Latin America and Asia.
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“This indicates two prevailing winds:democracy and a willingness to put principles before a desire to stay in China’s good books,” he said.
A spokesman for the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China,comprising more than 200 MPs from 20 democratic legislatures said the declaration was a good start but needed to have teeth if it was to be effective.
“Democratic countries must not only condemn these actions but ensure that such coercive diplomacy has tangible consequences,” a spokesperson said.
“Until then the Chinese government will continue to break the rules and norms of the international order with impunity.”
Separately in Brussels,the head of NATO called on member states to boost their defence spending,ahead of a meeting of defence ministers later this week and the leader’s summit later this year.
“China and Russia are at the forefront of an authoritarian pushback against the rules-based international order,” Jens Stoltenberg said.
“So we should enhance our political dialogue and practical cooperation who might want the partners to promote our values and protect our interests.”