China’s ambassador to New Zealand has penned an angry 36-page letter to local MPs railing against US democracy on the eve of President Joe Biden’s address to the United States’ democracy summit.
Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly reigning [sic] in his diplomats and curbing their often hostile approach to diplomacy, Wang Xiaolong has sent an 11,300-word document to numerous New Zealand MPs saying it was a report on how the United States was a failed model of democracy.
Titled One Should Not Impose on Others What Himself Does Not Desire – Some Observations on Democracy, it accuses the US of trying to split the world into two camps of democracies and non-democracies.
The US did this, the letter claims, by issuing annual report cards on human rights conditions around the world and organising the Summit for Democracy, which Biden is due to address on Wednesday. It also follows last week’s visit to Beijing by New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta.
“As a Chinese saying goes, it’s inappropriate not to reciprocate,” Wang wrote to MPs. The ambassador included in his letter a copy of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s report titled: The State of Democracy in the United States: 2022.
The document contains critiques of US foreign policy made by figures from around the world, including quoting Belarusian state media. Belarus is a vassal state to Russia and supports Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Russian leader began just days after striking a no-limits partnership with China’s Xi.
“It reveals not only American democracy in chaos at home but also the havoc and disaster the US has brought by peddling and imposing its democracy around the world,” Wang said of the report.
He claimed there were different styles of democracy and that China’s system of governance was an example of one.
“There is no single model of a democratic political system that is applicable to all,” Wang wrote.
‘[The report reveals] the havoc and disaster the US has brought by peddling and imposing its democracy around the world.’
“The way democracy is manifested in a specific country is the result of choices made by its own people on the basis of its own national realities.”
It is one of about 10 letters sent by the Chinese embassy to New Zealand MPs in the last six months and follows recent dispatches about AUKUS and trade.
Sydney Morning Herald
Someone needs to tell this meddlesome diplomat to pull his head in. China is the very last country to talk about democracy in such a manner. Their own system is about as far from democracy as one can get and their record on human rights is as bad as rogue states’.
What astonishes me is that no one here is talking about it. Why is that?
The Chinese Ambassador needs to be hauled in and given a good hard talking to. But when you consider Nanaia Mahuta is currently in China it makes it even more strange that this ambassador is sending out such intemperate letters to Members of Parliament.
When are Kiwi politicians going to realise that China is not our friend, and never will be? Their respect for democracy is non-existent and crawling to them has no effect. Even trading with them has had no effect.
The time is coming when we will need to pick sides. Australia has picked their side and this is the Chinese way of trying to bully New Zealand into at least staying neutral, or at best siding with China.
But again, why the media silence?
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE
6 comments:
One would expect Peters to comment......
The media are too busy slagging off Posie Parker and defending her assailant - much more important than foreign affairs.
Why has there been nothing from any MP's. Unless they are already in China's trough!
Tell the Chinese Ambassador to go and dip his eye.
Nanaia Mahuta, visiting China. I am going to "place a tongue in cheek response" - That I await for the 'good lady' to return to NZ, and from the steps of important Maori Iwi, announce to NZ, that "she -has signed a belt & Road Agreement with China", and as part of the "deal" they will be allowed to take control of the deep water port in the Bay of Islands (Russell), for their Naval ships - both surface & submarines.
At that point, watch both Australia & the USofA "cut NZ off at the knees".
Now remember, I said "tongue in cheek"!
Maybe part of the strategy of targeting small Pacific nations eg the Solomon Islands. And a friendly gesture . Reaching out to those who are deadset on decolonising NZ.
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