KEY POINTS:
A diplomatic Winston Peters carefully avoided criticising China when the Green Party tried to put him on the spot in Parliament yesterday.
MP Keith Locke wanted to know whether the Foreign Minister agreed with a US State Department report which said China was authoritarian and continued to deny citizens basic human rights and fundamental freedoms.
"New Zealand is a sovereign nation that forms its own views and assessment of other countries and nations," Mr Peters replied.
Mr Locke didn't think that constituted an answer, but Speaker Margaret Wilson said Mr Peters had addressed the question.
Mr Locke persisted, and the situation deteriorated when he suggested Mr Peters was being "muzzled" because the Government wanted to sign a free trade agreement with China.
"Of all the terrible rumours about Winston Peters, none of them has been about me being muzzled," Mr Peters replied.
He explained that while important areas of difference between New Zealand and China were recognised, it did not follow that ending economic relationships and political dialogue was the best way to react.
Mr Locke tried to get some answers from Mr Peters about Tibetan monks, but the minister was not obliging.
"We do not intend to jeopardise the whole future economic and foreign policy relations of this country by picking up on some attack of the nature that Mr Locke has been notorious for supporting ... the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and supporting, of all things, the killing fields and Pol Pot," Mr Peters said.
- NZPA
