Luxon is in China on a three-day trade mission. He wrapped up the Shanghai leg of the mission on Thursday evening by proclaiming $871 million worth of deals were done while he was in the city.
Geopolitics threatened to overshadow the trade-focused mission. The Luxon Government’s foreign policy has been criticised by some commentators, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, for a drift towards the United States, which risks undermining the health of the relationship with China.
That drift comes at a time when the United States is backing Israel’s strikes on Iran, amping up tensions in the Middle East.
Xi, returning to Beijing from Kazakhstan, said “we oppose any act that infringes upon the sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity of other countries”. He added that escalation was “not in the common interest of the international community”.
Luxon’s comments were similar, urging de-escalation.
By Thursday, a far more local issue began to dominate attention with Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirming the Government had frozen $18.2 million in funding for the Cook Islands.
The freeze is the most recent act in the ongoing dispute between the New Zealand Government and the Cook Island Government, led by Prime Minister Mark Brown, over a strategic partnership the Cooks signed with China earlier this year, which the New Zealand Government believes breaches the Cooks’ obligation to consult with it on significant matters of foreign policy.
New Zealand’s quarrel is mainly with Brown rather than Xi, but the Government is frustrated by China’s increasing assertiveness in the Pacific and underhand exertion of influence in Pacific Island nations.
Some in the Government do not see China as entirely blameless.
Speaking at the Pacific-France Summit earlier this month, Peters said it was important that powers who engaged in the Pacific “do so in a manner that is transparent and supportive of good governance. Not all partners take this approach”.
“Some ask Pacific partners not to publish agreements or avoid the [Pacific Islands] Forum Secretariat when organising regional engagements,” he said.
Those remarks would suggest that Peters is frustrated with the way China has conducted its relations with the Cook Islands.
Luxon, however, seemed to treat the issue as mainly one between the Pacific neighbours.
“Our issue is really with the Cook Islands. It’s between the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Our issue is with the Cook Islands not being transparent in international agreements,” Luxon said, adding Peters had mentioned his frustrations when he met China’s top foreign affairs official Wang Yi.
Other challenges in the relationship include China firing a ballistic missile into the Pacific last year and sending a strike force through the Tasman Sea earlier this year without warning. At the time, Defence Minister Judith Collins hit out at China, saying “they have not deigned to advise us on what they are doing in the middle of the Tasman Sea”.
Luxon has refused to say in advance what he will raise in his meeting with Xi, which will take place in the early afternoon (NZT) in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
There’s a good chance that very little, if any, of this will be raised. Meetings with the Chinese President are typically quite short and to the point. Luxon’s official counterpart in the Chinese system is Premier Li Qiang, with whom he will meet after Xi.
When then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins visited China in 2023, he raised China’s human rights record in his meeting with Xi, but had a more fulsome discussion of the issue in his longer meeting with Li.
