Link to article: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-wants-mature-relationship-with-china-foreign-minister-says-2021-05-07/
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, declared that the country is finding it harder and harder to reconcile their economic desire to trade with China with their humanitarian desire to protect human rights in light of China’s abuse against the Uyghur people of the Xinjiang region. Reuters spoke with Nanaia Mahunta, New Zealand’s foreign minister who is also the first indigenous Maori woman to hold the post. She noted that “it is important for [New Zealand] to ensure we are respectful, consistent and predictable in the way we convey issues we agree on, but also on issues we don’t agree on. And it’s part of our maturing relationship [with China].” Mahuta and Arden are focused on forming “an independent foreign policy that is not loyal to any major bloc”, however Mahuta is not comfortable expanding the role of Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance between New Zealand, the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada, which is known to take stances on human rights issues across the globe. She believes that it would be better to build a “broader base of support” for human rights issues to help promote change from a greater number of nations. Mahuta and Arden’s main goals, however, are to support the stabilization of Australia’s relationship with China, which was damaged when Canberra requested an international investigation into the source of the coronavirus pandemic. New Zealand and China’s relationship remains strong—they upgraded their free trade agreement in January—however New Zealand wants to make sure that it’s supporting its closest ally, Australia.
The abuse to the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region has been going on for a very long time and it is vital that we address it with China, much like New Zealand’s prime minister is doing. Since the muslim population is so large, this attack on them should not just be pushed under the rug. Muslims have had to fight for their culture and religion as a whole for so long, just because they worship differently than Christians do. It is disgusting that this has been going on for so long, and many counties turn a blind eye to it just to keep good relations with China, much like the US does.
This relates pretty heavily to class since we JUST talked about it, and my group actually did our entire presentation on the Xinjiang Insurgency. This abuse solely to the muslim population is horrible and it’s been going on since the 70’s. It is very important that other countries do the same as New Zealand and take action against it. This