Government afraid of offending China, party claims

1.00pm

United Future leader Peter Dunne says the Government is being excessively timid in refusing to grant a Taiwanese government minister a visa to enter New Zealand.

Taiwanese minister Lin Yi-fu was to address a New Zealand-Taiwan Business Council seminar in Wellington next week, but seminar organisers today told NZPA it had been postponed after Mr Lin was refused an entry visa to New Zealand.

Mr Dunne said today the Government's decision to refuse Mr Lin a visa was because it did not wish to offend China, with which it was currently trying to establish a free trade agreement.

"The reasons are murky. I think they come down to a fear on the Government's part of doing anything that could upset a free trade agreement with China," he told NZPA.

"I think this is probably our foreign affairs department being far more cautious than it needs to.

"If a free trade agreement is in the interests of both China and New Zealand, then the visit of a Taiwan minister to New Zealand to talk to businesses that trade with Taiwan is hardly going to upset it."

Mr Dunne said that of the countries that had close relations with both Taiwan and China, New Zealand was the most timid.

Despite Australia also denying Mr Lin a visa, Australia and Canada were generally far stronger in their decisions relating to the two countries, he said.

New Zealand-Taiwan Business Council chairwoman Bertha Wright said today the seminar had been postponed because of the late refusal to grant Mr Lin a visa.

Earlier this year Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton signed a trade and economic framework for a free trade agreement (FTA) with China officials and work on a joint feasibility study is expected to be completed before November's Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum meeting in Santiago, Chile.

Both governments hope to start negotiating an FTA early next year.

New Zealand exports to China have doubled in the past six years to $1.38 billion in 2001, not counting over $1b of services.

Imports from China are worth about $3b.

The Chinese government does not recognise Taiwan, which it sees as a renegade state of China.

Green co-leader Rod Donald said the visa refusal displayed the Government's "fawning foreign policy towards China".

"The New Zealand Government's sycophantic compliance with China's foreign policy agenda highlights the price we are paying for Labour's single-minded pursuit of free trade," Mr Donald said in a statement.

"A civilised nation should never sacrifice its fundamental commitment to human rights in order to keep its shelves stocked with cheap shirts."

A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said the visa application probably would have been processed by the Immigration Service, but would have been referred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for comment.

Mr Goff was not immediately available for comment.

- NZPA

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