AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected accusations from Beijing that his country is “plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes.”

Beijing spoke out after an Australian diplomat led a group of Western nations in making unsubstantiated claims about human rights violations in China.

“When it comes to China, we’ve said we’ll co-operate where we can, we’ll disagree where we must and we’ll engage in our national interest, and we’ve raised issues of human rights with China,” Mr Albanese told reporters on Thursday as he arrived in the Pacific Island nation of Samoa for a Commonwealth leaders’ summit.