Four lawmakers from New Zealand have been barred from traveling to China for a year following a visit to Taiwan last month, government officials said on Thursday, the first time such a restriction has ever been imposed.
The lawmakers, Maureen Pugh, Duncan Webb, Laura McClure and David Wilson, visited Taipei for five days in May as part of a cross-party group that was established in 2023 to maintain relations between Taiwan and New Zealand, the local media reported.
The travel ban, which emerged on Thursday, was met with shock in New Zealand. Lawmakers have visited Taiwan for years without issues, a spokesperson for New Zealand’s minister of foreign affairs, Winston Peters, said.
“In the context of that long history, the minister was surprised to learn that China has taken a decision to, for the first time, impose travel bans on New Zealand M.P.s as a result of travel to Taiwan,” the spokesperson said, referring to members of Parliament.
The group was barred for a year from China, Hong Kong and Macau, the spokesperson added. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday strongly condemned China’s retaliatory measures against the New Zealand lawmakers and accused Beijing of interfering in its activities.
The travel ban suggested that China was escalating its efforts to isolate Taiwan, which it considers its territory. China, New Zealand’s largest trading partner, largely regards any engagement with Taiwan’s leaders as a violation of Chinese sovereignty.
Mr. Peters has instructed New Zealand officials in Wellington, the capital, and in Beijing to discuss the matter with the Chinese authorities “in order to express concern at this departure from past practice and to better understand it,” a spokesperson said.
Unease at the travel ban was echoed in Australia. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the country was concerned and that officials would raise the matter in Beijing and Canberra, Australia’s capital.
“Placing pressure on parliamentarians is not appropriate,” Ms. Wong said.
Ms. McClure, one of the lawmakers who traveled to Taiwan, said she had found out about the travel ban about a week ago from New Zealand officials. Her initial reaction was one of confusion and surprise, she said.
“I think the intent behind this is to intimidate or deter future delegations to Taiwan, because it is concerning as a member of Parliament to have this ban imposed, particularly when you’re just exercising your freedom and rights as a member of Parliament and living in a democratic country,” Ms. McClure said.
Local media reported that China said it would lift the travel ban if the parliamentarians apologized. But Ms. McClure said she would not apologize for carrying out her job and would not be “bullied.”
New Zealand has acknowledged Beijing’s one-China policy for over 50 years and does not have any diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but it still maintains economic ties with the self-governed island. The spokesperson for Mr. Peters said that visits to Taiwan by lawmakers were not inconsistent with New Zealand’s one-China policy.
However, the Chinese embassy in New Zealand said in a statement that the New Zealand lawmakers had disregarded China’s “repeated prior warnings” about visiting Taiwan. It accused the parliamentarians of “interference in China’s internal affairs.”
“Anyone who crosses the line on the Taiwan issue, regardless of who they are, will pay the price,” the statement said.
Jason Young, director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Center at Victoria University of Wellington, said China’s reaction to the visit was “quite significant.”
“My read of it would be that this is less about New Zealand and it’s more about China strengthening its own position on Taiwan and making efforts internationally to bring around a whole bunch of countries to its position on Taiwan,” he said.
China has for years used its economic clout to try to compel governments, companies and organizations to treat Taiwan as China’s territory. Those efforts have intensified recently. Earlier this year, China tried to prevent a trip by President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan to Eswatini, one of just a dozen states in the world with official ties to the island.
In March, China sanctioned a Japanese lawmaker, Keiji Furuya, accusing him of “colluding with ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces” and making repeated visits to Taiwan despite Beijing’s opposition. Mr. Furuya is a conservative member of the Japanese House of Representatives and leads a bipartisan council of lawmakers that supports close ties between Japan and Taiwan.
China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Mr. Furuya would be prohibited from traveling to mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.
David Pierson and Berry Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Chris Buckley from Taipei, Taiwan.
