More than 200 people from Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chinese community gathered for a vigil at Auckland’s Aotea Square last night to mourn the lives lost under China’s stringent covid-19 lockdowns and to call for an end to the country’s “Zero Covid” policy.

The unprecedented display of defiance by a crowd mainly made up of Chinese Kiwis from the mainland came after a lockdown building fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, last week that killed 10 people.

The Urumqi fire has sparked nationwide protests across China and among overseas Chinese, with vigils and protests building up in major cities including New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

• READ MORE: China Xinjiang: Urumqi rocked by covid lockdown protests after deadly fire
• China softens covid stance after protests, clashes with police

More than 100 people at the event held up blank pieces of A4 paper as a symbol of defiance against China’s censorship of dissent, and chanted in Mandarin: “We don’t want leaders, we want votes — we don’t want dictatorship, we want citizens”.

“Without freedom, I’d rather die.

“Xi Jin Ping, step down, CCP step down.”

A similar vigil for the Urumqi fire victims was also held in Wellington last night.

Step up after seeing suffering
In an emotional speech, one of the organisers of the Auckland vigil said despite having no previous experience participating in social movements, she had decided to step up after seeing the recent tragedies of Chinese people suffering under the lockdowns.

“There were a series of suicides in Hohhot where I come from, I felt at that time that I can no longer say everything is fine — we can say that for New Zealand, but my family and friends are in China, so I can no longer be silent,” she said.

Members of the Uyghur Muslim community from Xinjiang — where the Urumqi fire happened — also attended, showing solidarity and protesting against human rights violations against Uyghurs.

The protesters also called for the release of protesters arrested in China.

The organiser paid tribute to a list of Chinese citizens who had stood up against authority during the pandemic, including jailed citizen journalist Zhang Zhan and the lone protester on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge who displayed banners calling for people to strike and for the removal of Xi Jinping.

Like her, many at the gathering were first-time protesters emboldened by the recent protests in China.

Another protester said he was also inspired by the man on Sitong Bridge.

‘He gave us courage’
“He gave us a lot of courage. He was a person at the bottom of society, who did what he knew was forbidden, he sacrificed himself to awaken the Chinese people’s desire for a democratic society,” he said.

“I feel like he’s planted a fire in all our hearts, he’s like the Prometheus of our times.”

An international student who had just graduated from high school said she wanted to contribute to ending China’s lockdowns.

“If the protests could work and make all the cities stop the lockdown, I was so happy to come to come here today, hear everyone share their stories and using the A4 paper to show our anger.”

Another said he hoped the protests in China and abroad instilled a sense of what it meant to be a responsible citizen for Chinese people.

“If people want to live with dignity in a fair society, there needs to be a civil society,” he said.

‘Softer’ solidarity
Meanwhile, some at the gathering chose a softer way of showing solidarity with the victims of the Urumqi fire.

Chrysanthemums were laid and candles were lit, and a school aged child accompanied by his parents played “Do you hear the people sing” on his flute.

One attendee told RNZ he was glad that the people who gathered could find something in common regardless of where they were on the political spectrum.

“Some people want to see a revolution in China, others just want something small like for their residential area to come out of lockdown earlier, so that people can freely buy groceries,” he said.

“But people can easily find a common denominator, and that’s hoping things will move forward a little bit, and let friends and family living in China be safer and freer.”

At least two major cities in China — Guangzhou and Chongqing — have eased covid-19 restrictions following a clash between protesters and police in Guangzhou this week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Since Jacinda Ardern described the state of world affairs as “bloody messy” earlier this year there have been few, if any, signs of improvement. Ukraine, China, nuclear proliferation and the lasting impacts of a global pandemic all present urgent, unresolved challenges.

For a small country in an increasingly lawless world this is both dangerous and confronting.

Without the military or economic scale to influence events directly, New Zealand relies on its voice and ability to persuade.

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But by placing its faith in a rules-based order and United Nations processes, New Zealand also has to work with — and sometimes around — highly imperfect systems. In some areas of international law and policy the machinery is failing. It’s unclear what the next best step might be.

Given these uncertainties, then, where has New Zealand done well on the international stage, and where might it need to find a louder voice or more constructive proposals?

Confronting Russia
Strength and clarity have been most evident in New Zealand’s response to the Russian attack on Ukraine. There has been no hint of joining the abstainers or waverers at crucial UN votes condemning Russia’s actions.

While it can be argued New Zealand could do more in terms of sanctions and support for the Ukrainian military, the government has made good use of the available international forums.

Joining the International Court of Justice case against “Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law” and supporting the International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine are both excellent initiatives.

Unfortunately, similar avenues have been blocked when it comes to other critical issues New Zealand has a vested interest in seeing resolved properly.

UN vote to ignore human rights abuses in China leaves west in dead end https://t.co/mTWo4ETubU

— The Guardian (@guardian) October 7, 2022

China and human rights
This has been especially apparent in the debate about human rights abuses in China, and allegations of genocide made by some countries over the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

New Zealand and some other countries correctly avoided using the word “genocide”, which has a precise legal meaning best applied by UN experts, not domestic politicians. Instead, the government called on China to provide meaningful and unfettered access to UN and other independent observers.

While not perfect, the visit went ahead. The eventual report by outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet concluded that China had committed serious human rights violations, which could amount to crimes against humanity.

This should have forced the international community to act. Instead, 19 countries voted with China to block a debate at the UN Human Rights Council (17 wanted the debate, 11 abstained). The upshot was that China succeeded in driving the issue into a diplomatic dead-end.

Allowing an organisation designed to protect victims to be controlled by alleged perpetrators isn’t something New Zealand should accept. The government should make it a diplomatic priority to become a member of the council, and it should use every opportunity to speak out and keep the issue in the global spotlight.

Ardern’s Russia warning: New nuclear age dawns – countries want to start and win new nuclear war https://t.co/ft03c2FAI5 pic.twitter.com/DRoA4IDRFN

— nzherald (@nzherald) September 23, 2022

Arms control
Elsewhere, New Zealand’s foreign policy can arguably be found wanting — most evidently, perhaps, in the area of nuclear arms regulation.

Advocating for the complete prohibition of all nuclear weapons, as the prime minister did at the UN in September, might be inspiring and also good domestic politics, but it doesn’t make the world safer.

With the risk of nuclear conflagration at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis, a better immediate goal would be improving the regulation, rather than prohibition, of nuclear weapons. This would entail convincing nuclear states to take their weapons off “hair-trigger alert”.

The other goals should be the adoption of a no-first-use policy by all nuclear powers (only China has made such a commitment so far), and a push for regional arms control in the Indo-Pacific to rein in India, Pakistan and China.

Pandemic preparedness
Finally, there is the danger of vital law and policy not just failing, but not even being born. This is the case with the World Health Organisation’s so-called “pandemic treaty”, designed to better prevent, prepare for and respond to the next global pandemic.

New Zealand set out some admirable goals in its submission in April, but these have been watered down or are missing from the first working draft of the proposed agreement.

This shouldn’t be accepted lightly given the lessons of the past two-and-a-half years. Transparency by governments, a precautionary approach and the meaningful involvement of non-state actors will be essential.

Similarly, improved oversight of the 59 laboratories spread across 23 countries that work with the most dangerous pathogens is critical. Currently, only a quarter of these labs score highly on safety. The proposed treaty does little to demand the kind of biosecurity protocols and robust regulatory systems required to better protect present and future generations.

As with the other urgent and difficult issues mentioned here, New Zealand’s future is directly connected to what happens elsewhere in the world. The challenge now is to keep adapting to this changing global order while being an effective voice for reason and the rule of law.

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand’s condemnation of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elections reflects a “hardening stance” towards China, says a leading defence analyst.

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta last week joined her Five Eyes counterparts to express “grave concern” over the erosion of democratic elements of the new electoral system.

“Actions that undermine Hong Kong’s rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy are threatening our shared wish to see Hong Kong succeed,” the joint statement reads.

• READ MORE: G7 condemns ‘erosion’ of democracy in Hong Kong election

Pro-Beijing candidates swept the seats under the new “patriots-only” rules that saw a record-low voting turnout of 30.2 percent; almost half of the previous legislative poll in 2016.

New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States are now urging the People’s Republic of China to respect protected rights and fundamental freedoms of Hong Kong.

Director of 36th Parallel Assessments Dr Paul Buchanan said this reflected New Zealand’s cooling relationship with China as it increasingly aligned itself with its traditional partners.

“It’s very clear something has shifted in the logic of the security community and foreign policy community in Wellington. I tend to believe it is Chinese behaviour rather than pressure from our allies, but it may be a combination of both,” he said.

Increasing Chinese pressure
New Zealand’s relationship with China has come under increasing pressure this year after it raised concerns about Chinese state-funded hacking and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Mahuta has previously said New Zealand would be “uncomfortable” with the remit of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance being expanded to include diplomatic matters.

Dr Buchanan said it was not clear if last week’s joint statement on the Hong Kong elections was consistent with this stated independent foreign policy, or a sign New Zealand had abandoned this to better align itself with its traditional partners.

“That’s an open question to me, because I can see that the government can maintain independence and say, ‘simply on the issue of Hong Kong and China we side with our traditional partners, but on any range of other issues, we don’t necessarily fall in line with them’,” he said.

“On the other hand, maybe the government has made a decision that the threat from the Chinese is of such a magnitude it’s time to pick a side, get off straddling the fence and choose the side of our traditional partners because the Chinese values are inimical to the New Zealand way of life.”

Dr Buchanan said a “hardening stance” towards China was in line with the contents of a new defence report that recently identified ‘China’s rise’ and its power struggle with the United States as one of the pre-eminent security risks in the Indo-Pacific.

“This may be more reflective of the security officials’ concerns about China and that may not be shared by the entirety of the current government.

General consensus
“Although, the fact that the foreign minister signed off on this latest Five Eyes statement regarding Hong Kong would indicate that there is a general consensus within the New Zealand foreign policy and security establishment that China is a threat.”

In response to the joint Five Eyes statement on Hong Kong, the Chinese Embassy issued a statement telling the members to stop interfering with Hong Kong and China’s affairs.

Of particular concern, Dr Buchanan said, was China’s explicit assertion in this response it was led by China’s Constitution and the Basic Law, not the Sino-British Joint Declaration, in its administration of Hong Kong.

“The Chinese now have said that the joint declaration signed in 1997, no longer applies and all that applies in Hong Kong is Chinese law.

“So they’ve violated their commitment to that principle and that’s symptomatic of an increasingly-hardened approach to everything, quite frankly, of a policy matter under Xi Jinping.”

Dr Buchanan said New Zealand, whose biggest trading partner is China, was positioned as the most vulnerable of the Five Eyes partners to any potential economic retaliation from China.

“It would be pretty easy to see that if the Chinese are going to retaliate against anybody in the Anglophone world, it would more than likely be us because it’ll cost them very little, people have to change their dietary habits among the Chinese middle class, but it will have a dramatic effect on us because a third of our GDP is tied up with bilateral trade with China.

“But the government has clearly signalled that it’s seeking to diversify. It has now signalled that on the diplomatic and security front, it sees the Chinese increasingly as a malign actor, and so whatever is coming on the horizon, this government at least appears prepared to weather the storm.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand Labour MP Louisa Wall has accused China of harvesting organs from political prisoners among the Uyghur and Falun Gong populations.

The MP, who is part of a global network of politicians monitoring the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), also says her own government needs to do more to counter what she calls the slave labour trade in China.

“Forced organ harvesting is occurring to service a global market where people are wanting hearts, lungs, eyes, skin,” Wall said.

• READ MORE: The Red Line series
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China expert Professor Anne-Marie Brady of the University of Canterbury, describes the New Zealand government’s political strategy on China as something close to a cone of silence.

“Our MPs seem to have a pact that they’re not allowed to say anything at all critical of the CCP and barely mention the word China in any kind of negative terms.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta refused to do interviews for the new Red Line podcast, which examines the influence of the CCP in New Zealand.

But Wall has broken ranks.

‘Used as slaves’
“I’m concerned that there appears to be a million Uyghurs being imprisoned in what they call education camps, but essentially, used as slaves to pick cotton.”

Wall, along with National’s Simon O’Connor, is one of two New Zealand MPs in the International Parliamentary Alliance on China, a network of more than 200 politicians from 20 parliaments, set up to monitor the actions of the CCP.

She thinks New Zealand should be doing much more to counter the slave labour trade from Xinjiang, in the north west of China.

“What the UK and Canada have done is they’ve got modern slavery acts and they want to ensure the corporates who are taking those raw materials, actually ensure that the production of those raw materials complies with the modern slavery act. I like that mechanism.”

She says the government also needs to pass new laws to stop New Zealanders getting organ transplants sourced from China or from any country that cannot verify the integrity of its organ donor programme.

China sources some organs from political prisoners, she said.

“The Uyghur population, and also the Falun Gong population, both have been designated as prisoners of conscience,” she said. “We know that they are slaves. We also know that they’re being used to harvest organs.”

Tribunal finding
She bases that on findings from a recent independent tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, a British QC, who previously worked with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

His 600-page report, called the China Tribunal, says the killing of political prisoners for organ transplants is continuing in China and that many people have died “indescribably hideous deaths” in the process.

“Based on a report from Lord Justice Nice from the UK, we now know that forced organ harvesting is occurring to service a global market where people are wanting hearts, lungs, eyes, skin,” Wall said.

The Chinese embassy in New Zealand ignored requests to talk about this issue.

China announced back in 2014 that it would no longer remove organs from executed prisoners and when the China Tribunal report was released in 2018 the CCP dismissed it as inaccurate and politically motivated.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• The RNZ Red Line series

Chinese authorities are systematically harassing Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups even after they have left the country, according to new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International.

Uyghur New Zealanders were among those interviewed, despite the threat of further intimidation.

The case studies, published online today, reveal how Chinese authorities target members of the Uyghur and other Chinese diaspora communities across the globe through pressure from its embassies abroad, as well as through messaging apps and threatening phone calls.

READ MORE: Uyghur harassment – Nowhere Feels Safe

Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand executive director Meg de Ronde says it is part of an ever-growing body of evidence of the Chinese government’s attempts to control and repress people speaking out about continued human rights abuses both inside and outside China.

“Governments have a responsibility to ensure people are free to practise their beliefs, whatever they may be,” she says.

“In China, the government is using tactics like enforced disappearances, intimidation and detainment to prevent these freedoms. The Chinese government is not only preventing them from practising their religious beliefs, they’re extending this to other countries as well.”

De Ronde says Uyghurs living in New Zealand, a majority of whom have fled persecution in the autonomous territory of Xinjiang in northwest China, have to maintain a low profile for their own safety.

“The situation for Uyghurs living in New Zealand is very delicate. We urge anyone working with this community to be mindful of their safety and what information is shared on what platforms to ensure they are not inadvertently putting anyone at risk.

“Uyghurs must be given autonomy over any processes undertaken with government departments or external organisations, their freedom over their own lives here must be protected.”

She adds the New Zealand government must monitor and protect against attempts to repress people living within New Zealand.

“It’s incredibly important that the government takes measures to protect the Xinjiang diaspora living here because the threats of further intimidation and oppression are very real for those living in fear.

“Everyone has the right to live in peace with the religion they choose. Amnesty International is also calling on Chinese authorities to allow UN human rights experts access to the region to conduct an independent investigation into the situation in Xinjiang.”

The Nowhere Feels Safe report
For the Nowhere Feels Safe report, Amnesty International collated information from approximately 400 Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Uzbeks and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups living in 22 countries across five continents over the course of a year between September 2018 and September 2019.

Their accounts reveal the harassment and fear being experienced by these communities on a daily basis.

Several Uyghur interviewees told Amnesty International that local authorities in Xinjiang had targeted their relatives back home as a way to suppress the activities of Uyghur communities living abroad.

Others said the Chinese authorities had used social messaging apps to track, contact and intimidate them.

The testimonies illustrate the global scope of China’s campaign against Uyghurs, Kazakhs and others originally from Xinjiang, with Chinese embassies and consulates tasked with collecting information about members of these ethnic groups residing in other countries.

Since 2017, China has pursued an unprecedented campaign of mass detention of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang. An estimated one million or more people have been held in so-called “transformation-through-education” or “vocational training” centres where they have endured a litany of human rights violations.

Earlier this week, a 137-page Chinese government document leaked to several international media outlets listed the personal details of people from Xinjiang, including their religious habits and personal relationships, as a means of determining whether they should be interned in “re-education” camps.

The leaked details supported evidence of violations previously documented by Amnesty International.

An estimated up to 1.6 million Uyghurs live outside China, according to the World Uyghur Congress.

Significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs can be found in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Smaller communities live in other countries, including Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United States.

Republished from an Amnesty International media release.

• The full Amnesty International report