Frank Williams, Honiara
China has formally protested to New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry over remarks by Foreign Minister Winston Peters directed at a Chinese-born Green Party MP during a heated parliamentary debate.
The Chinese Embassy in Wellington announced the protest on Thursday, one day after the exchange, citing “negative China-related remarks.” China’s ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, also took the unusual step of publicly commenting, writing on X that while he normally refrains from intervening in domestic politics, “sometimes, a statement says more about the person that makes it than anything or anybody else.”
The incident occurred on Wednesday during debate on New Zealand’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Green Party MP Lawrence Xu-Nan, who was born in Tianjin, China, and raised in New Zealand, asked Peters whether he had been vaccinated. Peters responded by claiming Xu-Nan had “come here five minutes ago,” then told him: “Go back to your own country. That’s where they lie like a flatfish, but they don’t lie like that here. This is called a democracy, unlike what you’re used to. Go back to where you’ve come from, you loudmouth.”
Peters, a well-known heavy drinker who has long practised a form of “alcohol diplomacy” in his political and diplomatic dealings, later defended his comments as a defence of democracy and free speech. In a post on X he said the ambassador’s intervention had “proven the point” he made in Parliament, drawing a contrast between New Zealand’s democratic system and what he called “communist and dictatorship countries.” He added that he would “not resile from that point.”
Xu-Nan described the attack as an attempt to scapegoat migrant communities and distract from the government’s record: “It’s a little bit unbelievable to have a Minister for Foreign Affairs, I guess, scapegoating the migrant communities as a distraction to shift the blame away from all of the harm that this government is doing.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, whose National Party governs in coalition with Peters’ NZ First party, labelled the remarks “inappropriate attention-seeking.” However, Luxon has shown no willingness to take further steps. Widely viewed as a weak prime minister constrained by his coalition partners, Luxon appears unable or unwilling to reprimand Peters, making disciplinary action against the Foreign Minister highly unlikely.
The episode is not isolated. Last year NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones shouted “send the Mexicans home” at Philippines-born MP Francisco Hernandez, prompting a protest from Mexico. Peters later suggested the comments “may have been expressed differently” in the heat of the moment.
