WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday.
China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory.
Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing.
The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
Beijing says Taipei has no right to conduct foreign relations and views visits by foreign lawmakers to the island as defying China’s claims of sovereignty.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Thursday confirmed the sanctions.
“We urge the relevant people to sincerely respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and strictly abide by the One China principle,” Mao said during a regular briefing in Beijing. “Anyone who crosses the red line on the Taiwan question must pay the price.”
Peters' spokesperson said the officials' visit was “not inconsistent with New Zealand’s One China policy," which includes acknowledgment of Beijing's claim that Taiwan is a province of China. New Zealand is not among the 12 nations worldwide that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan's government.
Emails sent to the lawmakers by New Zealand's Parliamentary Service, and seen by the AP, said that Beijing's embassy in Wellington had asked for a message to be conveyed to the four officials that they were banned from China, Macau and Hong Kong for one year.
The ban might be rescinded if the lawmakers in question apologized for visiting Taiwan, the email said.
“China has consistently opposed visits to China’s Taiwan region by members of the legislatures of countries that have established diplomatic relations with China, including New Zealand, and this case is no exception," a spokesperson for China's embassy in Wellington said in a statement posted to its website Thursday. “The New Zealand side should not be surprised.”
New Zealand officials in Beijing and Wellington would discuss the matter with China “in order to express concern at this departure from past practice and to better understand it,” Peters' spokesperson said. Lawmakers in New Zealand decide individually whether to join delegations traveling abroad and such visits usually include representatives from multiple political parties.
Lawmaker Laura McClure from the libertarian ACT party said that the “demand” for an apology was “frankly insulting” and she wouldn't give one.
Duncan Webb, from the center-left Labour Party, said New Zealand valued democratic institutions and the right to engage with partners abroad.
“If the cost of doing that is to be excluded from China for a year, I will pay that price,” Webb said in an email.
Relations between Wellington and Beijing have in recent years been largely positive. China is New Zealand's largest trading partner and was the first Western country to sign a free trade deal with Beijing.
In New Zealand's nearest neighboring country, Australia, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Thursday that her government too would express concerns about the lawmakers' bans to Beijing and to China's mission in Canberra.
“We agree with the principle expressed by New Zealand that members of parliament, including the Australian Parliament, are free to make their own decisions about their travel independent of government,” she told a Senate committee in Canberra on Thursday.
“Placing pressure on parliamentarians is not appropriate,” she added.
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Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Huizhong Wu in Bangkok and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne contributed to this story.
