New Zealand used high-level talks in Beijing to raise concerns about the surprise deployment of Chinese warships off its western coast, New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said yesterday.
Dozens of commercial flights were forced to divert last week when the vessels announced live-fire drills underneath a busy flight path halfway between Australia and New Zealand.
Both nations have criticized China for springing the drills with little warning — Australian officials said a last-minute alert was broadcast on a channel unchecked by air controllers. Peters said he raised “the failure to give us adequate notice” while meeting with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) in Beijing on Wednesday.
Photo: Reuters
“This is a failure in [our relationship] at this time, and we’d like to have it corrected into the future,” Peters told reporters in Beijing following the meeting.
“We did place on record our concern, and the expectation that we will have a better warning in the future,” he said. “I think it would be true to say that he took our concerns on board.”
Wang told Peters both countries should become partners of mutual trust and resolve “some specific differences” through dialogue, a readout from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Peters was in Beijing for a three-day visit after relations between the two countries became strained over the drills.
New Zealand also raised the importance of “international rules” underpinning “stability” in the region, Peters said in a statement released yesterday.
“Our region and the world are facing a myriad of challenges, including increased tensions in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait,” it said.
Australia and close ally New Zealand have been monitoring the vessels — a frigate, a cruiser and a supply tanker — since they were detected in international waters off Australia last week.
Officials said 49 commercial flights were forced to divert around the live-fire zone on Friday last week.
The Chinese ships were south of Tasmania in Australia’s exclusive economic zone and were now moving west, the New Zealand Defense Force said on Wednesday.
China has defended its conduct as “safe, standard and professional.”
Peters said he also raised China’s missile launch test in September last year that landed near French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone, of which “most Pacific Island nations got no warning at all” and New Zealand got “little warning.”
China was considering the issue of providing earlier notice for future naval drills, he said.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
RSS