Foreign Minister Winston Peters has asked officials to "express concern" with Chinese counterparts about the travel bans placed on four MPs.
National's Maureen Pugh, Labour's Duncan Webb, ACT's Laura McClure and NZ First's David Wilson are banned from China for a year after visiting Taiwan in May.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Peters said New Zealand's One China policy had not changed.
"New Zealand has maintained its One China policy for over half a century. New Zealand MPs have visited Taiwan for decades and such visits are not inconsistent with New Zealand's One China policy," he said.
He said he was surprised to learn of the bans.
"In the context of that long history, the Minister was surprised to learn that China has taken a decision to, for the first time, impose travel bans on New Zealand MPs as a result of travel to Taiwan.
"He has instructed MFAT officials in Beijing and Wellington to discuss this matter with the Chinese system, in order to express concern at this departure from past practice and to better understand it."
Peters said MPs were free to make decisions about travel overseas independent of the government.
Parliament's Speaker Gerry Brownlee told RNZ the four MPs - none of whom are ministers - were not part of the government and were probably just interested in the relationship between China and Taiwan.
"I don't think they were questioning any particular political status anywhere, I would hope this is a one-off thing - and particularly the way in which they would want to treat New Zealand members of Parliament in the future."
He said he was a little surprised and disappointed by the bans.
"New Zealand has a political system that means MPs are elected as free and unencumbered individuals, they're able to make their own choices about these matters and these four MPs are not part of the government and they don't carry any authority of the government."
"I don't think so. I think the New Zealand-China relationship's pretty strong, and this is obviously just one of those little pinch points that we'll get to understand more about."
Labour's Duncan Webb told RNZ MPs had been warned by the Chinese Embassy before the trip it would result in a ban.
"Met a lot of officials, visited universities and visited semiconductor plants, visited their cybersecurity entity - it was really good and informative," he said of the trip.
"With the increasing tensions I suppose a response wasn't surprising, but I think it is disappointing."
He argued he was just doing his job.
"It's a retaliation for a member of Parliament doing something that I think is part of a member of Parliament's job, which is to build relations with the Taiwanese administration and other entities around the world at a Parliamentary level."
China was becoming increasingly assertive, he said, and the bans were part of that - but would not affect New Zealand's relationship with China.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz |  |
