[ Video Courtesy of NTDTV ]
The vice-president was on a three day visit to New Zealand to discuss trade between the two countries.
Outside the hotel in central Wellington where the vice-president was staying, Chinese Communist Party supporters and protesters from the persecuted spiritual group Falun Gong were lining the streets.
But on parliament grounds at the Beehive a short distance away, Norman was holding up the Tibetan flag to protest China's human rights violations in Tibet.
However, his efforts to protest were cut short when Chinese security guards manhandled him in an attempt to prevent him from showing the flag on the arrival of the Chinese vice-president.
He said around twelve security guards were pushing and shoving him and an umbrella was pushed in front of his face. The Tibetan flag was pulled from his hands.
“I looked for it on the ground and found it under the foot of one of the Chinese government personnel. I leaned down to pull the flag out from under the foot of the Chinese government security person. As I did so they stood on my hand but I managed to get it out from under their foot and hold it back up again,” he said on his blog.
“I understand that the security operation in front of parliament was a New Zealand Police operation. But they certainly weren’t in control of it, the Chinese government guards were.”
Norman said that the National government had allowed the Chinese security guards to control parliament which meant that it could no longer be considered a safe place for democracy.
He has laid a complaint with the police saying that freedom of speech in New Zealand needed to be protected.
“The Chinese security guards succeeded in creating an international incident out of a one man protest and it certainly was particularly inappropriate that it was a New Zealand senior politician and on New Zealand parliamentary grounds,” Anne-Marie Brady, an expert on Chinese politics from Canterbury University told Television New Zealand.
“It is quite disturbing that the National government has taken such a weak response to this incident and I think it is very symptomatic of how dependent New Zealand is on trade with China,” she said.
Joan Wang, who was protesting the persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong in China, said that in China there was no freedom of expression. The fact that New Zealand people can speak out frightens Chinese politicians.
Mr Xi Jinping was to open the Confucius Institute at Victoria University on Saturday but doubts over adequate security at the university resulted in the launch taking place in the vice-president's hotel room instead.
Despite the wrangle on parliament grounds, TVNZ reported that Prime Minister John Key considered the visit by the Chinese delegation to be a “success”. Key will be visiting China in two weeks.
