We are deeply disappointed about New Zealand signing a free trade deal with China which is committing genocide crimes
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We are deeply disappointed about New Zealand signing a free trade deal with China, which is committing genocide crimes against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic peoples, on January 25.
Keeping silent about the ongoing China’s genocide crimes, signing a free trade deal or supporting China’s events such as the 2022 Beijing Olympics is equivalent to giving the green light to totalitarian regimes and genocide crimes to spread across the world.
Each generation deserves to live a happy life without fear, surveillance, unexplained deaths, forced labor, sterilization, and separation of children from their families to sinicize and eliminate their faith and culture.
You seem to be making a little money from China’s market. But, in fact, you are feeding a tyranny getting stronger and bigger. You are planting the seeds of the dictator in your own soil with your own hands. You are sacrificing your generation’s rights and happiness for your own benefits.
As representatives of millions of mothers, fathers, and children who are crying under China’s heavy oppression. We call upon all the civilized worlds and leaders to follow the United States, recognize China’s atrocities in occupied East Turkestan as genocide.
It is very urgent to stop China’s ongoing genocide crimes using more decisive international actions such as deploying peacekeeping troops to save millions of lives from horrific losses. Again, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic peoples desperately need your immediate help to survive.
East Turkistan Government in Exile.
January 27, 2021
China, New Zealand ink trade deal as Beijing calls for reduced global barriers
Praveen Menon and Gabriel Crossley
·3 min read
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China, New Zealand ink trade deal as Beijing calls for reduced global barriers
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addresses her supporters at a Labour Party event in Wellington
By Praveen Menon and Gabriel Crossley
WELLINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – China and New Zealand signed a deal on Tuesday upgrading a free trade pact to give exports from the Pacific nation greater access to the world’s second-largest economy.
The pact comes as Beijing seeks to establish itself as a strong advocate of multilateralism after a bruising trade war with the United States, at a time when the coronavirus has forced the closure of many international borders.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed the signing of the expanded deal.
“China remains one of our most important trade partners…For this to take place during the global economic crisis bought about by COVID-19 makes it particularly important,” she told a news conference.
The pact widens an existing trade deal with China to ensure it remains fit for purpose for another decade, Trade Minister Damien O’Connor said in a statement.
It provides for tariffs to be either removed or cut on many of New Zealand’s mostly commodities-based exports, ranging from dairy to timber and seafood, while compliance costs will also be reduced.
For a factbox on key deal points, please click on the square brackets:
CHINA’S MULTILATERAL PUSH
“The upgrade shows the two sides’ firm determination to support multilateralism and free trade,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman of China’s foreign ministry, told a news briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.
The previous day, speaking at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum, President Xi Jinping had criticised isolationism and “Cold War” thinking and called for barriers to trade, investment and technological exchange to be removed.
In recent months, Beijing has signed an investment pact with the European Union and joined the world’s largest free trade bloc in the 15-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes New Zealand.
China has also expressed interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Agreement, the successor to a pact from which Washington withdrew.
China’s new deal with Wellington also opens up sectors such as aviation, education and finance. In exchange, New Zealand will increase visa quotas for Chinese language teachers and tour guides, the official Xinhua news agency said.
New Zealand was the first developed nation to sign a free trade pact with China in 2008, and has long been touted by Beijing as an exemplar of Western engagement.
China is now New Zealand’s largest trading partner, with annual two-way trade of more than NZ$32 billion ($21.58 billion).
But ties have been tested under Ardern’s government as New Zealand criticised China’s influence on small Pacific islands and raised human rights concerns about Muslim Uighurs.
Ardern also backed Taiwan’s participation at the World Health Organization (WHO) despite a warning from Beijing.
The wider trade pact also comes as Beijing’s ties with neighbouring Australia worsened after Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, which was first reported in central China.
Australia has appealed to the World Trade Organization to review China’s decision to impose hefty tariffs on imports of its barley.
New Zealand, which will host the regional Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this year, has said it would be willing to help negotiate a truce between China and Australia.
($1=1.3914 New Zealand dollars)
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Sam Holmes)
