New Zealand is to continue to cooperate on “shared interests” with China, even as tensions increase in the region and China grows “more assertive in the pursuit of its interests,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday.
Speaking at the China Business Summit in Auckland, New Zealand, the prime minister said she was planning a trip to China “to seize new opportunities for dialogue,” support the trade relationship and further cooperate on the climate crisis.
“Even as China becomes more assertive in the pursuit of its interests, there are still shared interests on which we can and should cooperate,” she said.
Photo: AFP
Ardern’s speech comes during a tense period for the Indo-Pacific region, with Western allies concerned about China’s push for influence, particularly its proposed regional Pacific security deal.
Ardern called for Beijing to respect and support the institutions that she said undergird regional and international peace and stability.
New Zealand and China had been “major beneficiaries of relative peace, stability and prosperity... The rules, norms and institutions, such as the United Nations, that underlie that stability and prosperity remain indispensable,” but are also “under threat,” Ardern said.
“We see how much we have to lose should the international rules-based system falter,” she said.
The speech was closely wedded to the party line of Ardern’s second-term government’s foreign policy.
The policy has emphasized “respect, consistency and predictability” in dealings with China: essentially, that the government would continue to cooperate and work closely with China on mutually beneficial matters, particularly trade, while calling out differences — typically on foreign policy and human rights.
That balancing act has, at times, been a difficult one to manage.
New Zealand remains highly dependent on China for trade — the nation is its largest trading partner, accounting for 23 percent of total trade and 32 percent of goods exports — but as China’s economic importance to New Zealand has grown, ideological differences with Beijing have become increasingly stark, with reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Beijing’s push into the Pacific and South China Sea, and the erosion of democracy in Hong Kong.
“In response to increasing tensions or risks in the region — be they in the Pacific, the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait — New Zealand’s position remains consistent. We call for adherence to international rules and norms; for diplomacy, de-escalation and dialogue rather than threats, force and coercion,” Ardern said. “Our differences need not define us, but we cannot ignore them. This will mean continuing to speak out on some issues — sometimes with others and sometimes alone.”
“We have done this recently on issues in the Pacific. We also have consistently expressed our concerns about economic coercion, human rights, Xinjiang and Hong Kong,” she said.
One of the prime minister’s primary examples of faltering institutions and norms was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and she called on China “to be clear that it does not support the Russian invasion” and “to use its access and influence to help bring an end to the conflict.”
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