Shipley stands by China comments

A major Chinese news outlet has admitted Dame Jenny Shipley did not write an opinion piece praising China and encouraging the world to listen to the superpower.

But the former New Zealand prime minister and National Party leader is still taking ownership of comments made in the article, international news organisation CNN is reporting.

On Monday one of China’s biggest communist news websites the People’s Daily published an opinion piece that appeared to be penned by Shipley. Shipley later said she did not write the piece but told CNN the comments attributed to her were correct.

The incident caught the interest of the world’s media.

The piece, titled ‘‘We need to learn to listen to China’’, published in the opinion section of the People’s Daily website, featured Shipley’s byline as well as a line at the bottom saying ‘‘The author is former prime minister of New Zealand’’. The story was amended in the past 24 hours to include the words at the bottom of the article: ‘‘Dame Jenny Shipley is former prime minister of New Zealand. The article is based on the interview by journalist with People’s Daily in December 2018’’.

The opinion piece still has Shipley’s byline.

In an email to CNN, Shipley said the article was based on an interview she gave to another Chinese state-run newspaper in December, and was not written by her, CNN said.

But the comments attributed to her were correct, she said.

The article praises China’s leaders and speaks positively of the communist nation’s rising economic prosperity, its Belt and Road Initiative and how far the country had come in the past 40 years.

Shipley is closely connected to China, with a chairman role at both China Construction Bank NZ and food export company Oravida NZ.