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WELLINGTON: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday (December 1) that her government has expressed concern with China over the use of a picture of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child.
Australia has demanded that Beijing apologize and remove the false image, posted on Twitter by a senior Chinese official on Monday, marking another recession in the deteriorating relations between the two countries.
“New Zealand has directly registered with the Chinese authorities our concern about the use of that image,” Ardern told reporters in the capital Wellington’s parliament.
“It was a non-factual post and of course that would concern us. So that is something that we have raised directly the way New Zealand does when we have such concerns.”
The small trade-focused Pacific island nation has stayed out of the growing dispute between China and Australia, and has long-standing diplomatic, commercial and political interests with both countries.
READ: Australian Prime Minister Says Misunderstanding of Interests Behind China’s Tension
New Zealand has a shared history, close cultural ties, geographic proximity, and a strong economic relationship with Australia. China is its most important trading partner, with two-way trade exceeding NZ $ 33 billion (US $ 23 billion).
New Zealand, which is part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group with Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States, joined a statement calling on Beijing to reverse its decision to disqualify elected legislators in Hong Kong.
The Ardern government also backed Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) despite a warning from Beijing.
New Zealand will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) next year, replacing Malaysia, where the global event was held this year.
Australia’s relationship with China has deteriorated since Canberra called for an international investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, China outlined a list of complaints about Australia’s foreign investment, national security and human rights policy, saying Canberra needed to correct its actions to restore the bilateral relationship.
