NZ’s Foreign Minister Defends Telling Chinese-Born MP to ‘Go Back to Your Own Country’

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters attends a press conference during a Nordic Council Meeting within the framework of the informal foreign and security policy cooperation (N5), on October 29, 2025 in Stockholm, Sweden. Claudio Bresciani/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters has defended comments he made in Parliament telling a Chinese-born Green MP to “go back to your own country.”

The exchange occurred during the general debate when Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan interjected, asking Peters if he was vaccinated. Peters responded by telling Xu-Nan to return to his country of origin.

“That’s where they lie like a flatfish, but they don’t lie like that here, all right?” Peters said.

“This is called a democracy, unlike what you’re used to. Go back to where you’ve come from, you loudmouth, and maybe you’ll learn something about the political system of New Zealand.”

Xu-Nan was born in China and moved to New Zealand as a child in 1994.

China’s Ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, later commented on social media, saying China had “absolutely no interest in being dragged into the domestic politics of other countries,” but added that “sometimes, a statement says more about the person that makes it than anything or anybody else.”

Xu-Nan described Peters’ comments as a “desperate attempt to distract” from the coalition government’s record.

“It’s a little bit unbelievable to have a Minister for Foreign Affairs scapegoating the migrant communities as a distraction to shift the blame away from all of the harm that this government is doing,” he said on TVNZ’s Breakfast.

“What we want to see is Prime Minister Christopher Luxon actually stepping up and holding his ministers accountable for their behavioural patterns.”

Peters later responded to the ambassador’s remarks on social media, saying they proved his point.

“No amount of pearl clutching and faux outrage is going to change it. We live in a democracy that includes free speech and rights—those two values that other certain countries not only limit, but do so with force,” he wrote.

“If you want to compare what our free democratic country has—in particular our parliament—then go back and see what it’s like in those communist and dictatorship countries and look for yourself.

“If that offends the pearl clutchers and the communist shills labelling it as ‘dangerous’—welcome to New Zealand.”

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark also criticised the comments on X, describing them as “a dangerous way to refer to NZ’s largest trade partner.”

Peters has a history of belittling opponents, having called a Green Party leader a “bigoted, lefty shill” in the past. He’s also always had a sceptical attitude towards China and its activity in New Zealand, suggesting that expatriate Chinese are so afraid of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that they avoid protests against it.

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