MPs condemn China’s ‘bullying’
Two MPs from opposing sides of Parliament say New Zealand needs to start ‘‘speaking up’’ about China’s ‘‘coercive diplomacy’’, backing Australia in a worsening diplomatic and trade dispute.
National MP Simon O’Connor and Labour MP Louisa Wall have joined a group of international MPs in decrying China’s ‘‘abusive bullying behaviour’’ after China imposed tariffs on Australian wine and a foreign official on Monday published a fabricated photograph of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child’s throat.
The escalating rhetoric has continued since. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday that New Zealand had raised concerns with Chinese authorities about the ‘‘unfactual’’ image.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, asked: ‘‘Does this matter have anything to do with New Zealand?’’
The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid with strong ties to China’s Communist Party, then published an editorial headlined ‘‘Kiwis bleat like Aussie sheep but don’t condemn Afghan killings’’.
Wall and O’Connor, who were both members of the previous Government’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee, have joined the InterParliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which describes itself as ‘‘an international cross-party group of legislators working towards reform on how democratic countries approach China’’.
They say that China’s actions very much matter if New Zealand is to preserve and promote democracy.
O’Connor told Stuff that during his time chairing the select committee, he learned of China’s foreign interference attempts, intimidation of Chinese nationals in New Zealand, and ‘‘leaking’’ of New Zealand’s information and research to China. This, he said, ‘‘set off the alarm bells’’.
‘‘To be honest, they’re still ringing,’’ he said. ‘‘This is something I, excuse the French, basically got p..... off about over the past few years ... and I feel personally that we’ve got to start speaking up’’.
He said IPAC had chosen to speak out about China’s ‘‘coercive diplomacy’’ – most recently by sanctioning the Australian wine industry – and the ‘‘egregious breach’’ of the 1997 Hong Kong handover agreement with Britain.
O’Connor, in a video posted to a personal social media page, praised Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for standing up to ‘‘abusive bullying behaviour’’ of the Chinese Communist Party, which he said New Zealand would not be immune from.
‘‘New Zealand should support Australia ... I certainly believe what’s happening to Australia will happen to us,’’ O’Connor told Stuff.
New Zealand had to wake up, he said, and realise it had a ‘‘little bit’’ of leverage as China’s middle-class benefit from New Zealand’s exports.
‘‘Basically, China’s sending a bit of a warning at the moment via Australia, and I think we should take heed,’’ O’Connor said.
Wall said her time on the select committee had been a ‘‘tipping point’’. As an MP ‘‘defined by a focus on human rights’’, she was particularly concerned about the plight of the persecuted Uighur minority in Xinjiang, the new national security law China imposed on Hong Kong, and new evidence of organ trafficking in China.
She said the committee had also discussed, in the context of New Zealand’s ‘‘Pacific Reset’’ diplomatic push, how China was using infrastructure loans – which often turned into crippling debt – to gain leverage over some Pacific nations.
‘‘I can’t understand why that [financial support] isn’t being treated as aid, as opposed to being treated as a loan, and I have some serious concerns about that ongoing debt for some of our Pacific countries,’’ Wall said.
Wall said she could ‘‘hand on heart’’ say that no-one had tried to dissuade her from expressing such views on China, and she had been supported by the office of the former foreign minister, Winston Peters, when asking for information.
She joined a video message of ‘‘solidarity’’ for Australia’s wine industry in a video published by the IPAC on Tuesday night. The advertisement was about ‘‘mates supporting mates’’, she said.
‘‘We’re standing up for our Australian mates who seem to be having a bit of a hard time at the moment, and are being bullied by a global superpower that really should be using their power for good,’’ Wall said.
‘‘More and more people are growing aware of what the issues are . . . We have to protect our democracy, and at the heart of all our democracies are the people. We don’t believe in authoritarian rule. We reject that.’’
‘‘I certainly believe what’s happening to Australia will happen to us.’’
Simon O’Connor National MP