Chinese visit sponsored by city, MP says
CLUTHASOUTHLAND MP Hamish Walker made a fleeting visit to China this month, but says there is no link between his trip and a Chinese millionaire at the centre of a National Party ruckus.
Mr Walker said he had never met Yikun Zhang, nor was the Aucklandbased businessman involved in any aspect of his visit to Guilin City about a fortnight ago.
Last week, rogue MP JamiLee Ross alleged National Party leader Simon Bridges handled a $100,000 donation from Mr Zhang to the party in a corrupt manner.
Mr Walker told the Otago Daily Times Guilin City invited him, Queenstown Lakes Mayor Jim Boult and his wife, Karen, and Aucklandbased National list MP Dr Jian Yang to visit.
Last week, The New Zealand Herald reported Dr Yang supported Mr Zhang’s nomination for a Queen’s Birthday honour.
However, both Dr Yang and Mr Walker said they did not meet Mr Zhang while in China, he was not involved in any aspect of funding the trip — paid for by Guilin City — no funds were raised by the National Party on the trip, nor were any likely to follow.
Both said National Party leader Simon Bridges also had no involvement in the visit.
Dr Yang, who was in China between October 12 and 16, said Guilin City expressed an interest in forming a relationship with Queenstown more than a year ago but planning for the visit began only ‘‘a few months ago’’.
He attended to ‘‘facilitate a relationship between Yangshuo County of Guilin City and Queenstown’’.
Mr Walker said he was invited as the CluthaSouthland MP.
‘‘Guilin City . . . are interested in learning from Queenstown as Queenstown is interested in learning from Guilin City.
‘‘Both cities have strong inter ests in handling high tourist numbers and dealing with central and local government policies and provide valuable learning opportunities for one another,’’ he said.
Mr Boult said Guilin City initially wanted to discuss a possible sister city relationship with him. Queenstown already has two — Aspen, Colorado and Hangzhou, China, ‘‘so we didn’t have an appetite to have a [third] one’’.
However, the city also wanted to discuss tourism and ‘‘investment opportunities in this part of the world’’, he said.
While he was not prepared to make a special trip to Guilin City, if he could ‘‘double the bang for the buck’’ he would visit.
That opportunity presented before the Destination Queenstownled delegation to Shanghai and Hangzhou, between October 15 and 19, which Mr and Mrs Boult also attended.
Mr Boult said Guilin City paid for the couple to travel from Queenstown to the city, which has a sister city relationship with Hastings dating back to 1977.
The Boults spent one day and one night there before Guilin City funded their travel to Shanghai to join the Queenstown delegation.
Guilin City had proposed a ‘‘memorandum of understanding’’ with the council, which Mr Boult said was more of a friendship than formal relationship between the two places. They had similarities in terms of tourism — the Chinese city had a population of about 300,000, and welcomed 10 million visitors a year.