Stormont has released the minutes of a controversial meeting between a Chinese diplomat and the first and deputy first ministers after an almost two-year battle for government transparency.
The record, which officials repeatedly resisted making public, does not appear to support Michelle O'Neill's account that she challenged China imposing draconian security laws on Hong Kong.
The Sinn Fein vice-president and then DUP leader Arlene Foster faced questions in summer 2020 after a report by Belfast's Chinese Consulate claimed the Stormont leaders had privately endorsed the divisive legislation.
Read more: Hong Kong pro-democracy activist's message to Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill
It was claimed the then first and deputy first ministers had said in a video call they "understand and respect" the security law, which has led to mass arrests in a brutal crackdown on human rights.
Their joint office did not initially deny the claim, but following criticism Mrs Foster and Ms O'Neill later distanced themselves from the consulate's account.
However, their department refused to release minutes of the meeting - arguing it would damage international relations.
Almost two years on, the Executive Office has now released the relevant section of the minutes to Belfast Live following a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.
The minutes said Ms O'Neill and Mrs Foster stressed to Belfast's Chinese consul general Zhang Meifang their desire to continue connections with Hong Kong.
They read: "The CG updated ministers on China's position on Hong Kong, the national security legislation and the ambassador's statement of 30th June.
"FM and dFM emphasised they were aware of the issues and stressed their desire for the situation to be resolved for all concerned and to enable links with HK to continue."
When the consulate report first emerged in 2020, Ms O'Neill tweeted: "I made it very clear that I supported the 'One Country, Two Systems' international agreement," the deal under which the UK handed over the territory to China in 1997.
Mrs Foster said her comments had been misrepresented and that her position on Hong Kong is the same as the UK government's.
The Executive Office later said the consulate's account of their video call did not reflect the ministers' comments. The report on the consulate's website was subsequently changed to remove the "understand and respect" claim.
Scores of pro-democracy activists and protesters in Hong Kong have been arrested under the national security law since it was imposed by China in 2020.
The superpower has also been internationally condemned for the internment of an estimated one million Uyghurs in northwest China in so-called 're-education' camps.
Earlier this week thousands of police photographs of Uyghurs were revealed in a data leak which laid bare the scale of China's secretive mass incarceration system.
For years Stormont and other Northern Ireland institutions have worked to develop links with China, including the Executive setting up a trade bureau in Beijing in 2014.
Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International's Northern Ireland programme director, said "human rights must never be traded for the sake of economic gain".
He said: "It now seems clear, from their own minutes, that when the first and deputy first minister had a chance to clearly challenge Chinese repression in Hong Kong, they failed to do so.
"It appears Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill even remained silent about the internment of a million Uyghurs in Xinjiang when they met the consul general just days after shocking footage emerged of hundreds of prisoners shackled and blindfolded on a train station platform.
"While Arlene Foster is no longer involved in politics, it's not too late for Michelle O'Neill, as Northern Ireland's First Minister-elect, to make a clear public condemnation of human rights abuses in Hong Kong, and in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China.
"Human rights must never be traded for the sake of economic gain - people in Northern Ireland have a right to expect our elected leaders to be unequivocal about this."
Mr Corrigan said that following the contentious meeting, Amnesty wrote to the ministers asking them to raise concerns with the consul general about the arrest of a pro-democracy activist.
He added: "We did not receive a response."
Read more: Hong Kong pro-democracy activist's message to Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill
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