Barry Soper: The matador and the bull on Chinese trade

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his wife Cheng Hong wave as they arrive in Wellington. Photo / Anthony Phelps

As China's Premier Li Keqiang flew out of the country yesterday he may as well have been a matador provocatively fluttering his red flag before Winston Peters who was running around in his wake in ever diminishing circles like a stuck bull wrecking the China shop.

And in that shop there was plenty on offer to bolster the trade between our two countries which has tripled to 23 billion bucks since the Free Trade Agreement with China came into force a month before John Key slid into the Prime Minister's chair.

In fairness to Peters he's been consistent from the start on the deal, raising eyebrows in Beijing as Foreign Minister, when it was signed by boycotting the ceremony.

The announcement this week that flights to and from the People's Republic will be increased to 59 a week will certainly facilitate the chilled meat trade that they've agreed to, initially on a six month trial basis for ten of our exporting companies.

Last year we exported a billion dollars worth of sheep and beef to China which is five times more than we were doing just five years earlier. Chilled meat is worth almost twice as much as we can earn from the frozen carcasses so exporters are tickled pink.

But while they're clinking glasses, Peters is smashing them saying we've all been hoodwinked and he can't believe how naive we all are, it's all part of a big conspiracy it seems.

Punctuated with the now familiar "with all due respect" which of course means no respect is due at all, Peters says the facts are as plain as the spider's web on Donald Trump's head, although in fairness he didn't quite say that but did say someone, when it comes to scolding ignorance, should sound a bit more like President Trump.

But the Peters' proposition's simple, until the Chinese got control of Silver Fern Farms, Shanghai Maling bought half of our biggest meat processor and exporter last year, there was no chilled meat going into China. Now they've got skin in the game they've opened the export gates.

Listen to Winston Peters' "China first, China second and China third" interview with Jamie Mackay in the audio above.

Get one thing straight, Peters fumed, like Donald Trump's America, "China first, China second and China third, it's number one in their thinking." He says to think this is some great, free market upgrading of the trade deal by allowing chilled meat into the country shows just how darned naive these National Party people are.

But he seems to ignore the fact that another nine companies will benefit from the deal and at least Silver Fern is still half New Zealand owned!