Jacinda Ardern pulls ‘genocide’ from Uighur motion

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s ruling Labour Party insisted any reference to genocide be scrubbed out.

Nanaia Mahuta said Wellington only recognised a genocide when it had been defined as such by international courts. Picture: Getty Images

New Zealand on Wednesday shied away from labelling China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority ­genocide.

Parliament unanimously passed a motion expressing “grave concern” at human rights abuses in northwestern Xinjiang, but only after Prime Minister ­Jacinda Ardern’s ruling Labour Party insisted any reference to genocide be scrubbed out.

MP Brooke van Velden said that while allies such as the US, Britain and Canada had called what was taking place genocide, it was “intolerable” that New Zealand refused to use the term to avoid upsetting its largest trading partner.

“The world is looking to us now to see what standard we are going to set — can the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) play us off as the weakest link in the Western alliance,” she said.

“We may face the threat of loss if we speak our mind, but we face a much greater danger if we don’t.”

Ms van Velden, from the minor opposition ACT Party, ­received support on the genocide question from the Greens, who said it was “stunningly callous” to water down the condemnation of China’s actions to maintain trade relations. “It’s ­absolutely morally indefensible and a breach of New Zealand’s legal obligations,” Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman said.

Foreign Minister Nanaia ­Mahuta told parliament that New Zealand had raised its concerns about the situation in Xinjiang with China at the highest levels of government.

But she said Wellington only recognised a genocide when it had been defined as such by international courts, citing the Holocaust, as well as atrocities in Rwanda and Cambodia.

AFP