China itself has been accused of operating detention centres, with more than 1m people estimated to have been detained in Xinjiang
China has said it is “deeply concerned” by what it described as the Australian government’s operation of offshore detention centres, and has called for the sites to be closed immediately.
Ties between the two countries soured in 2018 when Australia became the first nation to publicly ban China’s Huawei from its 5G network and worsened when Australia last year called for an inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus.
