NZ must back rights in China

We can’t say we didn’t know. Over the past five years, numerous academic and media reports have documented the Chinese government’s treatment of the 12 million Uyghurs, a Turkic people who live in the northwestern area of Xinjiang.

Mass internment camps. Political ‘‘reeducation’’. Religious persecution. Forced labour. Forced sterilisation. Children taken from their parents. Torture. Rape.

The persecution of the Uyghur people by a paranoid Chinese government hellbent on control almost certainlymeets the International Criminal Court’s definition of crimes against humanity. It may also meet the international legal definition of genocide. A group of more than 50 global experts in international law, genocide and China this month concluded there was a ‘‘clear and convincing’’ case to be made that Beijing had deliberately acted to destroy the ethnically and religiously distinct group.

Lawyers will debate definitions, but it is clear horrific acts have been committed in China. It is also clear New Zealand has done the bare minimum required of an open, law-abiding liberal democracy to condemn them. This is a reflection of the delicate balance the Government is trying to strike to protect a crucial economic relationship. Two-way trade amounts to $32 billion a year and is the linchpin of the primary sector, especially dairy, meat and forestry.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she raised the issue ‘‘face to face’’ with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019. Last year New Zealand joined 38 like-minded countries ‘‘gravely concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang’’. This is laudable, but insufficient. Our Government should be raising the issue of Xinjiang privately in every conversation with Chinese officials. We should also be saying more publicly, and more forcefully. Our Parliament should be investigating the links exposed in the Stuff Circuit documentary, released yesterday, showing partnerships between Government-backed entities and Chinese technology firms aiding the persecution of Uyghurs.

We are certainly not suggesting pulling the plug on Chinese business altogether. We should be able to protect and promote our core trading relationship with China while also doing more to make sure there is no New Zealand activity along any part of the supply chain leading to the atrocities in Xinjiang.

We must also ensure we do not – as has happened in Australia and the United States – drum up broader anti-chinese sentiment as we protest actions from the top of the Chinese Communist Party. But there are steps we could take. We should follow our allies in making sure we are not importing goods produced by forced labour.

Standing up to China is not going to be easy. It is our largest trading partner, taking a quarter of our exports, and it has proven to be a vindictive one. But we are proud of our independent, principlesbased foreign policy, and it has served us well.

Nanaia Mahuta, in her first speech as foreign minister, declared her intention to ‘‘take a valuesbased approach to foreign policy and work collectively in pursuit of our core interests’’. What are our values and interests if not to stand for basic freedoms? We cannot speak up only against geographically and economically distant human rights abuses in places like Rwanda and Syria. New Zealand must also – must especially – take a standwhen these things are happening in our political and economic orbit.

There is much more we can do to make sure we are not aiding Chinese government repression in even the smallest way. Our principles demand it.

Our Govt should be raising the issue of Xinjiang privately in every conversation with Chinese officials.