Big risks for NZ ?in China chill

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

The chill in New Zealand’s relations with China is a major concern that requires careful positioning by the Government, not defensive assurances everything is OK — it’s not — or the Prime Minister simply stating there are “challenges” and it has always been a complex relationship.

Chinese diplomacy can be opaque before it is obvious, but the signals are clear that New Zealand’s change in tone, and a ban on Huawei by our security agency, have put this vital relationship on the rocks.

Three weeks ago the fast-growing super power postponed the launch of a “China-New Zealand Year of Tourism” (made public this week, just before it was to take place), and an invitation for Jacinda Ardern to visit is on hold. She is the first prime minister since before Robert Muldoon to not visit China within the first year in office.

That change in tone has been on numerous fronts and aligns with a more muscular response by most Western governments to China’s trade practices and its military positioning. In particular, though, it stems from a New Zealand defence paper last year that called out Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ thinly-veiled comments around China’s influence-pushing in the Pacific, and the GCSB’s decision to block Huawei from the development of New Zealand’s 5G communications network over “significant national security risks”.

If the Government deems those risks cannot be ameliorated as well as maintaining a strong trading relationship, it could be taking the right course — bar impressing on Peters the need to be diplomatic.

It has to be absolutely sure of that, though, as New Zealand has benefited enormously from its favoured trading status with China, and become heavily reliant on it. China is our largest export destination — taking 24 percent of total exports in 2018, worth nearly $15.3 billion — and our largest source of imports; $11.9 billion in 2018, 20 percent of the total.

The right comments from Ardern, and adopting a position with Huawei similar to the approach of Britain — which implemented security steps that the Chinese telecoms innovator agreed to — would quickly resolve this situation.