WA Premier Mark McGowan is facing accusations he is out of his depth over his government's close relationship with Beijing after he refused to level any criticism at the authoritarian regime.

In an ABC interview published on Sunday, Mr McGowan said he didn't want to "get in the business of being a critic of China" and would not be drawn on allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, where more than a million Uighurs are believed to be imprisoned in re-education camps.

WA Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has criticised Premier Mark McGowan over his comments attacking the federal government's handling of its relationship with China. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

But the Premier had no trouble hitting out at the federal government's handling of the Sino-Australia relationship, taking aim at prominent WA MP Andrew Hastie, who raised the plight of China's Uighur population in Federal Parliament and likened the west's handling of Beijing's ambitions to Allied miscalculations in the defence of Western Europe during World War II.

Mr Hastie, a former SAS officer and chairman of the powerful Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, said Mr McGowan was speaking "outside his brief and beyond his narrow range of competence" and should get back to delivering government services.