Peters slams Shipley after China article
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has launched a stinging attack on former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley after an article appeared in China’s
People’s Daily under her byline complementing China on its reforms and the Belt and Road Initiative.
But Shipley did not write the piece, which appears under the online opinion section. It is headlined “We need to listen to China” and carries her byline. Last night it was the fourth best-read piece on the website.
She was interviewed by the staterun newspaper in December for a feature article which has run already and she was surprised yesterday to learn a new piece had been published under her name.
“I have not spoken to the China
Daily since December,” she said.
“It is important for the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister and others to understand that I would never think of getting into a public situation like this at such an important time for New Zealand’s relationship,” Shipley told the Herald.
Peters made his comments on the same day Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed David Parker would be attending a Belt and Road conference in Beijing in April — seen as part of effort to improve relations.
Peters has never forgiven Shipley for sacking him as Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister in a coalition Government in 1998.
When asked by reporters to comment on the People’s Daily article with Shipley’s byline, Peters questioned her credentials to chair the China Construction Bank NZ and he referenced the BNZ crisis of the early 90s when Shipley was in Opposition.
“It is actually extraordinary that someone who has so little knowledge of banking, for example, should be in the second biggest bank in China,” Peters said at Parliament.
“If you know about the BNZ and that scandal and the Winebox and everything else, she exhibited no financial understanding of commerce whatsoever, so what do I make of this is that there is somebody else just selling out New Zealand interests.”
When asked if he was really saying she was selling out NZ he said, “Yes, I’ve said that for a long time.”
The article appeared on Monday but does not mention the strained relations between China and New Zealand, accentuated when the GCSB objected to a 5G role for Huawei.
In fact it does not mention NZ at all. It praises China and President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.
It says that in Xi’s keynote speech at the annual Boao Forum, he remained committed to opening its doors to the world. “While China continues to think about how it can open wider to the world, we should learn to listen to China.”