10 Conditions of Love, a documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, a campaigner for the rights of China’s Muslim Uighurs, became the focus of a diplomatic clash on 15^th July 2009 when Richard Moore, the executive director of the Melbourne International Film Festival, received a telephone call from a cultural attaché based at the Chinese consulate in Melbourne.

Speaking to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Moore described the ‘strident conversation’ that took place with Chunmei Chen: ‘Ms Chen urged me to withdraw the film from the festival and told me I had to justify my actions in programming it. I told her that under no circumstances would I withdraw the film, that I had no reason to do so. I don't need to justify my actions, unless it's in relation to our own sense of morals. It showed an extraordinary arrogance on her part and it was an ill advised call to make given the situation..

The situation to which Moore referred was a diplomatic row between Australia and China following the arrest of four staff working for the Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto the week before by Chinese security officials amidst accusations that they were part of a commercial spying ring. One of those arrested was a senior executive accused of industrial espionage during negotiations over iron ore prices.

China’s government believed Kadeer’s World Uighur Congress was a front for a terrorist organisation attempting to establish a separate East Turkistan homeland in Western China. The businesswoman was arrested in 1999 and jailed for six years after being found guilty of providing secret information to foreigners. After her release in 2005, Kadeer was permitted to go into exile in America. On 5^th July 2009 more than 180 people died when police attempted to break up a protest by Uighurs in Xinjiang which the government believed Kadeer’s organisation was behind.

Speaking of the film, which focuses on Kadeer’s relationship with her activist husband Sidik Rouzi and her eleven children, three of whom were in prison, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said ‘We resolutely oppose any foreign country providing a platform for [Kadeer's] anti-Chinese, splittist activities.’