VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND OF CHINESE VICE-PRESIDENT XI JINPING
The three-day visit to New Zealand by Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping was kept under wraps. We heard about it only a few days before he came. He met the Governor General and Speaker of Parliament at a lunch with Prime Minister John Key.
While he was here a few agreements between the two countries were signed on Friday 18th June at Government House in Auckland.
Friends of Tibet (NZ) had a small, visible and silent vigil outside the gates of Government House, and Green MP Keith Locke attended. When Xi was driven past, he could not have failed to miss seeing the huge Tibetan flags, resulting in him being driven out from Government House through the back entrance in order to miss us.
As you most likely have heard the Chinese Vice President’s visit to Parliament on
Friday (at 1.30 not 3pm) resulted in a scuffle with Greens co-leader Russel Norman
and Chinese security staff – who took Russel’s Tibetan flag and trampled on it.
Russel Norman has subsequently referred the matter to the police.
This resulted in a change of venue for further meetings with the Chinese Vice
President Xi to the Intercontinental Hotel in Wellington, and cancellation of a
meeting scheduled at Victoria University. A small group of Friends of Tibet
supporters were able to protest outside the hotel on Friday – joined by Keith Locke
and Sue Kedgeley (and later by Falun Gong) – to the chagrin of Chinese security
staff.
We were shocked to hear about the treatment of one of our senior MPs on our
Parliament steps by Chinese security.
There was a very good editorial in the Sunday Star Times about it, which says it all.
We as New Zealanders are perfectly entitled to express our views in this way and it’s horrifying to think that foreign nationals can take such action in our Parliament grounds and got away with it. We understand that police are not taking any action due to lack of evidence . There was enough evidence of this shown on news channels that night.
To make matters worse, our Prime Minister has apologized to the Chinese Government on this incident..
Report by Thuten Kesang