Steerpike Steerpike

Is Ireland cosying up to China?

Simon Coveney and Wang Yi (Photo: People's Republic of China)

In 2019, the then-deputy prime minister of Ireland Simon Coveney spoke at the UN Human Rights Council, where he underlined Ireland’s commitment to defending human rights – which he said was strengthened by his country’s membership of the EU. As he told the summit, freedom and justice are:

woven through our foreign policy, through our bilateral engagement and through our determined and committed membership of the European Union.

The speech came in the midst of the Brexit negotiations, where Ireland were keen to be portrayed as noble victims of the Brexit vote, pitted against an isolationist, knuckle-dragging UK.

How times change. Coveney, now Ireland’s foreign minister, has just gotten back from a trip to China, as part of a European delegation of foreign ministers from Poland, Hungary and Serbia. The trip certainly seemed to go well, or at least Beijing seemed to think so. Politico’s Stuart Lau pointed out on Monday that the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, celebrated the trip afterwards by releasing a crowing statement. The Chinese authorities quoted Coveney as saying that it is a ‘common wish’ for the EU to strengthen its cooperation with China, and that it would be a ‘historic mistake’ if the EU and China were separated by ‘certain man-made barriers’. Mr Steerpike wonders if those ‘man-made barriers’ might include Beijing’s rather loathsome treatment of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province or the way it has smothered democratic rights in Hong Kong.

Since then, Mr S has been waiting patiently for the Irish department of foreign affairs to put forward its version of events, perhaps explaining that Coveney did indeed raise human rights issues when he visited China.

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