Minghu Yu was walking along a footpath just north of the university about 9 on Friday night when two young men approached him. What happened next is still being determined by the police, but a security camera showed Yu struggling with an assailant.
Breaking free, he ran for his life - straight into the path of oncoming traffic. Yu, just 24 years old and a native of China, was pronounced dead on arrival at the nearby hospital.
The young man had been working towards his PhD in statistics. The head of the faculty at which he had been studying said: "As a community we mourn the loss of one of our members, and especially of a young person with so much to look forward to in a life of promise.''
A 13-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with his manslaughter. Only in New York, eh?
A couple of people I respect intimated they felt the ferocious reaction to New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown's exposition on race-based immigration was unfortunate in so much as it made any serious discussion on the issue virtually impossible.
They have a point - there is a serious debate to be had about immigration in this country which is the right and proper business of government and elected representatives, and indeed the people - but it only goes so far.
For one thing, it is hard to believe Mr Brown was so much setting out to stimulate a mature and intelligent discussion on such policy as attempting to set the tone of an altogether different conversation: one designed to prey on subliminal fears within certain sectors of the electorate.
For another, given the timing of the pronouncements - just ahead of the Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and China, signed just two days ago - and the position of his party, languishing in the polls, the comments were most likely an election-year ploy.
Mr Brown was referring to population projections showing Asian numbers in New Zealand could grow from 400,000 in 2006 to 790,000 by 2026.
The folly of our "open-door'' policies is that we "will be inundated with people who have no intention of integrating into our society'', he said.
Such immigrants would form "their own mini-societies to the detriment of integration and that will lead to division, friction and resentment''.
Mr Brown was seeking to frame the debate through classic stereotyping: encouraging a view of Asians, classified by a generic race-type which in itself is pretty insulting, as self-interested, non-contributory, inward-looking, divisive and uninterested in the country to which they or
their forebears have emigrated.
As an experienced MP, Mr Brown must know that New Zealand administers a criteria-based immigration system according, among other factors, to age, employment potential, financial status and health.
He must know also that the projected rise is due in no small part to the growth of the population already resident in New Zealand.
He should also know that the United Kingdom is still the largest source of immigrants to New Zealand, and that Asian New Zealanders are more likely to succeed in their studies than many other New Zealanders and less likely to trouble the police.
That is to say, in so far as one can generalise, they are industrious and law-abiding.
He might also have made reference to the fact, as several business commentators have since, that they play an invaluable role in New Zealand commerce, industry and academia, helping to give us the competitive advantage we need to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
Had he done so, then it would have been far easier to engage with the notion that the modern post-FTA world poses genuine questions for New Zealand, particularly with respect to population make-up and immigration.
And yet his disingenuous remarks ignored or diminished these realities. That is his privilege, and if it is NZ First's policy drastically to curtail Asian immigration or proscribe further Asian population growth in this country then he's entitled to say so.
But let us not pretend that the ham-fisted approach to the issue by Mr Brown does not have ramifications.
Let us not pretend that the senseless tragedy that befell Minghui Yu could not happen on the streets of this country. Sadly, those with acquaintances of Asian descent who are not infrequently victims of casual abuse on account of their race, know that it is only too possible.
And that the way Mr Brown articulated his thoughts makes it more, rather than less, likely.
- Simon Cunliffe is assistant editor at the Otago Daily Times.
