Dealing with a totalitarian regime

I never thought I would see the day when New Zealand’s foreign minister would give his or her blessing to China’s institutionalised abuse of human rights (West too hard on China, says Peters, Dec 5).

Yet this is what Winston Peters did in his keynote speech to Victoria University’s Confucius Institute on Tuesday. He suggested Western commentators should have more regard for economic outcomes rather than ‘‘constantly harping on about the romance of freedom’’.

Is this the Coalition Government’s policy? Have we sunk so low in our pursuit of opportunities in the Chinese market that we try to ingratiate ourselves in this way with that totalitarian regime?

Is it, as Vladimir Lenin wrote a hundred years ago after the Bolshevik Revolution, ‘‘the whole world’s governments and capitalists, as they pant to win the Soviet market, will close their eyes ... and transform themselves into men who are deaf, dumb and blind ... they will toil to prepare their own suicide’’?

I hope not. TREVOR HUGHES Karaka Bays