Photograph: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty ImagesThe country is under pressure to take a stronger moral stance on human rights issues in and around China. Human rights groups have described mass human rights abuses in Xinjiang, including the incarceration of more than a million people in internment and re-education camps, forced labour, mass sterilisation of women, and restrictions on religion, culture and language, as cultural genocide. At the time, trade minister Damien O’Connor said that using the language of genocide would hurt New Zealand’s trade relationship. The opposition leader, Judith Collins, also said New Zealand’s trade relationship with China was the “elephant in the room” in the discussion. New Zealand does not have an equivalent resource monopoly in its China trade relationship.

Source: The Guardian May 24, 2021 19:52 UTC