Peters acknowledges 'ascendancy' of China

NZ First Party Leader Winston Peters. Photo / Janna Dixon

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has given a speech in Singapore in praise of China, a nation he said was indisputably a great power now in "ascendancy".

"With its history, culture, and capability, energy and enterprise it is rightly taking its place at the centre of the world stage.

"Overall, that is a very positive development," he said in speech notes to a seminar at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"China's ascendancy is now an absolutely pervasive aspect of the region's future.

"In contrast, since the onset of the global financial crisis, there has been a palpable sense of United States decline."

Mr Peters said in New Zealand that he wanted China to fully assume the leadership role and responsibility that went with being a great power. Mr Peters, whose New Zealand First party has railed against immigration and, at times, Asian immigration, was Foreign Minister in Helen Clark's Labour-led Government from 2005 to 2008.

While he had a good relationship with his United States counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, he was critical of the US in his speech.

He said it was hard to disagree with an assessment by economist Joseph Stiglitz concluding that the US response to the September 11 attacks had "compromised America's basic principles, undermined its economy and weakened its security". "All this occurred while China's growing influence in the region heralded a development with profound consequences in all sorts of areas, including political, economic and military."

But, he said, it was very encouraging for New Zealand that despite their differences and rivalry, China and the US were fully cognisant of the central importance of their bilateral relationship.

Mr Peters said no significant progress on issues facing the region or the world - population pressures, climate change, food and water shortages, energy supply, institutional corruption - would be resolved without China playing a leading role.

Mr Peters has long admired Singapore's managed modern economy which was founded on investment from its compulsory superannuation scheme.