PM 'shares protesters' concerns'

Prime Minister Helen Clark says she shares the concerns of protesters against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, but it will not stop her signing a free-trade agreement with China.

Clark left New Zealand last night for Europe, where she will return Sir Edmund Hillary's Order of the Garter to the Queen, attend a Nato summit on Afghanistan and a progressive governance summit in London.

She will then fly to Beijing, where she is due to sign a free-trade deal with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in the Great Hall of the People next Monday.

Protests in New Zealand and around the world against a crackdown on Tibetan dissidents that has left up to 120 people dead have intensified.

Clark said she understood the public's concern and would relay it to China's leaders.

"I fully appreciate and share the concerns people have around human rights in China," she said. "I have expressed those concerns myself for many years and have been in a position to convey them to the highest levels of the Chinese Government, and I expect to be doing that again."

Outspoken New Zealand-resident Chinese journalist Nick Wang was yesterday denied a visa by Chinese authorities to travel with New Zealand journalists to Beijing to cover the signing of the free-trade deal.

Wang writes for an English-language Chinese newspaper that has been severely critical of Beijing.

Clark said she was aware the visa had been denied, but there was little she could do about it.

"I understand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade gathered together the names of all journalists and cameramen who wished to be included in the media delegation from New Zealand," she said. "We live in a country where we're very open to media. China isn't such a country."

Several overseas leaders have pledged not to attend the opening ceremony of this year's Olympic Games in protest against China's recent handling of uprisings, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prince Charles, and the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

Clark said she would not attend the opening, but not out of protest. "It's never been in my plans."

She said Governor-General Anand Satyanand was likely to represent New Zealand, along with Sports Minister Clayton Cosgrove, but no firm decisions had been reached.

Asked whether more Kiwis would lose their jobs in manufacturing industries as a result of the deal, Clark said New Zealand would be "foolish" to run its economy in competition with China for low-cost, low-wage, high-volume goods.

"That's no future for us. We want First World wages, not Third World wages," she said. "What we're doing is changing our economy so we can prosper as a First World nation, and that doesn't mean competing with China in those sorts of areas."

Asked whether she had had advice from officials about whether a free-trade deal should be signed at this time, Clark said a lot of work had gone into negotiating a "huge" agreement.

"It is unquestionably, in my mind, of very significant benefit to New Zealand in terms of removing barriers to our exports into China," she said. "It's well-known that Chinese exports come into New Zealand with very few barriers at all. The same is not true the other way around, and that is why it matters to us to negotiate an agreement like this.

"It is also a strategic agreement, acknowledging that China will be, in my lifetime, the world's biggest economy, that China is emerging as a superpower, and the more that superpower can be engaged with and drawn into an international rules-based environment, the better for all of us."

Clark said it was clear there was majority support in Parliament for the agreement because of its importance in the country's economic future.

A New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll yesterday found 44.7 per cent of those questioned supported the agreement and 32.4% did not. The other 22.9% did not know.

- © Fairfax NZ News