Foreign Minister Winston Peters blasts Chinese ambassador’s 'mistake'
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says it was a “mistake” for the Chinese ambassador to scold MPs over attending a Taiwan national day event.
Wang Xiaolong, China’s ambassador to New Zealand, last week sent letters to a cross-party group of MPs who attended a national day reception held by representatives of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, or Taiwan, in Wellington last month.
Among MPs to attend the event, and speak on stage of the value of New Zealand’s relationship with Taiwan, were Labour MPs Duncan Webb and Tangi Utikere, National MPs Joseph Mooney and Tom Rutherford, ACT MPs Laura McClure, Cameron Luxton and Parmjeet Parmar, and NZ First MPs David Wilson, Jamie Arbuckle and Andy Foster.
In the letter, Wang claimed the attendance of the MPs was inconsistent with New Zealand’s foreign policy and “therefore unacceptable”.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and New Zealand “acknowledges” the one-China principle, meaning the Government holds diplomatic relations with China and does not formally recognise Taiwan as a country.
“Such moves that deviate from the one-China commitment will inevitably undermine mutual trust, which lies at the foundation of our co-operation,” Wang said in the letter.
On Tuesday, Peters said he would describe to Wang the “essence of democracy” when he had a chance.
“He's got a very, very thin understanding of it, and I'll make sure he gets a better understanding of it.”
Peters said sending the letters was “a mistake that he shouldn’t have made” and that MPs attending the event was not in contravention of New Zealand’s foreign policy.
“Our foreign policy, first of all, has a key feature: it's the essence of democracy, and the responsibility of those members of parliament is to their constituency.
“I'm not going to overreact here. It's not the first time that they don't understand how democracy works.”
The Chinese embassy was contacted for comment.
The letter sent by Wang had briefly been made public by Webb, the Labour MP, who posted it on social media before deleting the post because, he said, it had become “a bit distracting”.
“Oh, look, [an] ambassador’s job is to influence. That was trying to influence me not to engage with Taiwan. That's their job. My job is to engage with everyone.
“New Zealand does have a clear one-China policy, but MPs engage with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office all the time.”
Webb said he was happy to receive the letter, but it “doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily do what the ambassador asks”.
Utikere said it was the first such letter he had received from the Chinese embassy. He had visited Taiwan as part of a parliamentary delegation earlier this year.
“I attend a lot of events. As a parliamentarian, my view is to listen to the views that are expressed by constituents and others … but I don't intend to change my availability to communities of interest all around the country.”
Mooney said he attended the event in a personal capacity and MPs had a long-standing record of engaging with the Taipei office.
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office representative Joanne Ou, the de-facto Taiwan ambassador to Wellington, said Wang’s “harrassing” of MPs was “another clear testimony of China’s undue interference in New Zealand”.
She said the People’s Republic of China’s “constant pressure to intimidate others for engaging with Taiwan doesn’t only reflect CCP [Chinese Communist Party] coercive diplomacy approach, but also their lack of security and inner fear.”
Other attendees of the national day event included Tory Whanau, Ron Mark, and Grant Smith, Asia NZ Foundation chief executive Suzannah Jessep, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies Professor David Capie, and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise board chairperson Charles Finny.