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.

The day before, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian had denounced a statement made by 15 nations to the UN general assembly this week — presented by Australia’s ambassador to the UN — that recycled “ongoing concerns” about alleged “serious human rights violations” in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The countries were all US allies, mostly European. No Muslim-majority country has accused China of repressing its Uighur Muslim minority.

The statement delivered by ambassador James Larsen amounted to “political manipulation under the pretext of human rights,” Mr Jian said.

Singling out Australia for a rebuke, he said the country was “long plagued by systemic racism and hate crimes” and should resolve its own problems instead of criticising China.

Mr Jian condemned what he said was Australia’s hypocrisy, citing its treatment of refugees, immigrants and indigenous people.

“Australian soldiers have committed abhorrent crimes in Afghanistan and other countries during their military operations overseas,” he said.

The Chinese spokesman appeared to be referring to findings that elite Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians between 2005 and 2016, which led to a number of senior military officers being stripped of their medals recently. 

Australia’s past policy of refusing to allow asylum-seekers who attempt to reach its shores by boat to ever settle in the country is also often cited by China as tarnishing Canberra’s standing on human rights.