Pro-Chinese NZ students 'enticed by free food and travel'

Images of Massey University students waving pro-Chinese Government banners at a rally in Australia have angered human rights campaigners, who say Chinese embassies have drummed up support with free food and travel.

Massey University academic Li Dong, a senior lecturer in Chinese, believed that the students pictured in The Dominion Post at a Canberra rally on Thursday to welcome the Olympic torch were from the Albany campus.

He said the banner read: "New Zealand Massey Overseas Students".

Mr Dong had no proof their travel had been paid for, but suspected it was organised by Chinese embassies. That was not to say the students did not believe what they were supporting.

"They have been spoon-fed propaganda since they were in kindergarten.

"In many cases the ones who can afford to come to New Zealand to study are ones whose parents have done very well out of the CCP [Communist People's Party]," he said.

There was widespread anger among different groups in China over the government's "failure" to clean up its human rights record before the Olympics.

Journalist and human rights campaigner Nick Wong said he believed the education division of the Chinese embassy had been encouraging overseas students to mobilise.

Chinese language websites had called on people to join rallies, with instructions on where to catch free buses from Sydney to Canberra and where to go for banners and free meals.

However, a spokesman for the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Wellington denied the government had been involved in the Canberra rally or similar rallies in London, San Francisco and Paris.

Victoria University student Jun Seng Wu, who is organising a pro-Olympics rally in Wellington today, denied he had got support from official sources.

"We say the Olympics should not be a political issue, the Olympics are about friendship ... we just wanted to do something personally." The march to Te Papa starts at 1pm at Victoria's Pipitea campus.

- © Fairfax NZ News