{"id":18073,"date":"2026-07-30T12:42:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18073"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:42:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T00:42:04","slug":"chinas-ambassador-weighs-in-as-winston-peters-tells-green-mp-to-go-back-to-your-own-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18073","title":{"rendered":"China’s ambassador weighs in as Winston Peters tells Green MP to ‘go back to your own country’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China’s ambassador has delivered a pointed response after Foreign Minister Winston Peters told a Chinese-born New Zealand MP to “go back to your own country” in Parliament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a social media post on Thursday, Ambassador Wang Xiaolong said New Zealand’s domestic politics were not China’s concern, but: “sometimes, a statement says more about the person that makes it than anything or anybody else”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Peters launched his attack during Parliament’s general debate on Wednesday after being heckled by Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Xu-Nan interrupted Peters’ speech on the Covid-19 response, asking: “Are you vaccinated?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Peters shot back, telling Xu-Nan to “go back to your own country”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“That’s where they lie like a flatfish, but they don’t lie like that here, all right?” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This is called a democracy, unlike what you’re used to.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Peters went on: “Go back to where you’ve come from, you loudmouth, and maybe you’ll learn something about the political system of New Zealand.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Xu-Nan was born in China but moved to New Zealand as a child in 1994.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wang published a post on X on Thursday morning, writing: “We have absolutely no interest in being dragged into the domestic politics of other countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Suffice it to say, sometimes, a statement says more about the person that makes it than anything or anybody else.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking on TVNZ’s Breakfast on Thursday, Xu-Nan described Peters’ comments as a “desperate attempt to distract” from the coalition’s record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s a little bit unbelievable to have a Minister for Foreign Affairs, I guess, scapegoating the migrant communities as a distraction to shift the blame away from all of the harm that this government is doing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“What we want to see is Prime Minister Christopher Luxon actually stepping up and holding his ministers accountable for their behavioural patterns.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Asked about the comments later on Wednesday, Peters doubled down, calling Xu-Nan an arrogant “twit”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“He’s only been here for five minutes, can’t even speak the language properly,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Former prime minister Helen Clark also weighed in on X, describing Peters’ comments as a “dangerous way” to refer to New Zealand’s largest trade partner.<\/p>\n

Source: RNZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China’s ambassador has delivered a pointed response after Foreign Minister Winston Peters told a Chinese-born New Zealand MP to “go back to your own country” in Parliament. In a social media post on Thursday, Ambassador Wang Xiaolong said New Zealand’s domestic politics were not China’s concern, but: “sometimes, a statement says more about the person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18076,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions\/18076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}