New Zealand has raised concerns with China over human rights abuses and growing tensions with Taiwan, Wellington’s foreign minister said in an interview yesterday.
New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta held talks with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang (秦剛) in which they discussed “challenging issues,” she said, including human rights in Xinjiang, freedoms in Hong Kong and China’s influence in the Pacific.
“There’s a lot that we can agree on and we also discussed some of the challenging issues, working through where we don’t agree on,” she said at the New Zealand embassy in Beijing. “Human rights was an area where we did discuss some of those issues where we don’t agree on.”
Photo: AFP
Mahuta this week made the first visit to China by a New Zealand foreign minister since 2018.
She earlier said in a statement that she had told her counterpart that the New Zealand government had “deep concerns regarding the human rights situation in Xinjiang and the erosion of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong.”
Another major flashpoint she raised was Taiwan, she said.
In the interview, Mahuta said she had also “used the opportunity to highlight New Zealand’s position on Russia’s illegal and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.”
Beijing has notably refrained from using such strong language to refer to the Russian invasion, instead accusing NATO of “fanning the flames.”
Mahuta added that New Zealand “urged China to use its influence with Russia to see the withdrawal of troops and ceasing of war.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to Moscow this week further exacerbated concerns that Beijing plans to provide material support to Russia.
Despite close economic ties between China and New Zealand, there were still certain topics related to human rights on which the sides disagree, Mahuta said.
New Zealand has also called out China, its largest trading partner, over reports of the repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
“In the discussion I urged China to respond to the recommendations of the Office of the [UN] Human Rights Commissioner,” she said.
Last year, the commissioner’s office detailed a string of rights violations against Uighurs and other minorities in the far northwestern region, highlighting “credible” allegations of widespread torture, arbitrary detention, and violations of religious and reproductive rights.
Beijing vehemently rejects the charges and insists it is running vocational training centers in the region to counter extremism.
New Zealand has also joined the US in accusing China of attempting to increase its military presence in the Pacific.
In Mahuta’s talks with Qin, she also raised concerns “over developments in the South China Sea,” the statement said.
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