Everyone has an opinion on Chinese President Xi Jinping. United States President Joe Biden thinks he’s a “dictator”, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins doesn’t think so, but is withholding what he actually thinks of Xi until after they meet for the first time next week.
One New Zealander who knows Xi better than most is former prime minister John Key, who spoke with the Herald ahead of Hipkins’ mission to China.
“He’s got a sense of humour,” Key said.
“He engages in conversation, he’s knowledgeable about New Zealand, he’s actually interested in the relationship,” Key said, adding “I always found him to be great”.
Key first met Xi on his visit to New Zealand in 2010, when Xi was vice president. He is interested in the country, and in agriculture and Māoridom in particular, Key said.
Xi did not speak English, although his wife, Peng Liyuan, does - quite well, as Key recalled. Despite the language barrier, small talk was good thanks to a translator.
The Herald pressed Key for examples of this sense of humour, thinking that it can’t be all that great, considering China has blocked images of Winnie the Pooh in the country after some noticed a passing resemblance between round-faced Xi and the bear.
Key said Xi’s sense of humour extended to “all sorts of things that were happening in the world”.
“Just, you know, sort of general things,” Key said.
When the Herald pressed for a specific example, Key recalled a dinner over long life noodles, which are very long noodles that are often served during Chinese New Year. One must never cut the noodles and only ever suck them because, as the custom goes, cutting a long life noodle would cut one’s life short.
“We had dinner and they served us long life noodles and you’re not allowed to bite them, you need to suck them because of course, if you bite them, you’re cutting your life, your life in half,” Key said.
“And I remember him pointing out to me that this was very, very important,” he said.
Perhaps you had to be there.
Key is famously still on Xi’s Christmas card list - and they have caught up since Key left office. Key is visiting China later this year, although he doesn’t think he will see Xi on this visit.
“I think he might be out of town,” Key said, “but I’m probably going to go and see the Vice President [Han Zheng]” Key said.
It is rare for a former leader to maintain relationships with people who are still in office, but Key said it was more common in the Chinese system.
“They put a lot of store in personal relations so they obviously have a relationship with New Zealand, but they have a relationship with the individual leader as well. I don’t think it’s particularly driven from the left or right of politics to them,” he said.
Key is a China optimist - a dove even - and he is, by his own admission, a bit of an outlier when it comes to the way he views the country. During his period as prime minister from 2008 to 2016, it was common for Western leaders to take a similarly dovish stance, lured by the country’s immense and growing wealth, and hopeful that its economic transition would bring about a transition to a more liberal society.
Not so. And since 2016, attitudes to China have hardened. China has too, with President Xi Jinping breaking norms to take a third term. New Zealand has changed its attitude to China too. In 2021, all parties in Parliament backed a motion to express the House’s grave concern “about the severe human rights abuses taking place against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”.
Key noted the change in temperature on China.
“In the period since I’ve been prime minister, it’s pretty clear that international attitudes have changed towards China and they’ve deteriorated and hardened,” Key said.
“New Zealanders will have a mixture of views towards China, but I still remain of the view that they are the most powerful voice in Asia, one of the most powerful voices in the world and they will always continue to be so,” he said.
“The forefront of our relationship is an economic one, but if you move beyond that, there’s been a long historical relationship between New Zealand and China,” Key said, noting New Zealand’s historic willingness to embrace China, something the Chinese Government remembers as the “Four (sometimes five) Firsts”, running from New Zealand being the first country to back China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, the first to recognise it as a market economy, first to sign a free trade agreement in 2008 and in 2015, New Zealand became the first country to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Despite the positive foundations of the relationship, Key is realistic about the challenges too, but thinks that good relations make it easier to discuss things on which there is disagreement.
“I’ve always believed that when you have a good constructive relationship with another country that gives you the ability to have good and rational conversations about areas of disagreement,” Key said.
Key does not buy the international bluster about Taiwan either. China claims the self-governing island as its own and places unification with the mainland as a priority. Xi himself has said that “reunification” with Taiwan “must be fulfilled”.
But Key thinks the status quo will continue, and doesn’t see a military solution.
“I think that the Chinese - they can live with the status quo. I don’t think they’re looking to change the status quo.
“What they would never agree to would be Taiwan being completely independent, but I don’t think there is a significant movement in Taiwan,”
“For the most part, polling in Taiwan demonstrates people are comfortable with the current arrangement,” he said.
“The size of the prize in China is always huge,” Key said.
“That’s because of the simple mathematical equation of their population and their growing economic wealth,” he said.
Success in this trip, therefore, means keeping that market open.
“The Chinese population and companies, many of whom are SOEs [state-owned enterprises] take their instructions and the guidance from what the party in Beijing believe is correct.
“So when, when, when the President of China speaks well of New Zealand - that carries a lot of weight and gets a lot of cut through,” he said.
That means one of the Key boxes for Hipkins to tick on the trip is the implicit endorsement of the CPP for New Zealand and its products.
Key’s belief in China doesn’t extend to a belief that New Zealand should bet big on one market.
“I’ve always thought it makes sense for New Zealand to have a diversified number of trading partners.
“We have seen the scenario where New Zealand is totally dependent on one market in the form of the UK when they moved away from us to favour the common market [the forerunner to the EU], they, you know, left New Zealand sort of high and dry on the economic implications of that were significant,” he said.
“I think it always makes sense for New Zealand to open as many markets as they can. The issue is: do many markets present the scale and significance opportunities that China does? I think the simple answer is in a word, ‘No’,” Key said.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
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