Hipkins meets Xi Jinping: behind the handshakes, NZ walks an increasingly fine line with China

By Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato

Chris Hipkins anticipated a “diplomatic” meeting with Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader said he placed “great importance” on the relationship with New Zealand. Both businesslike, Hipkins made sure to stress his country was open for business too.

And there is certainly a good story to tell when it comes to China. Hipkins is building on decades of cooperation, understanding and ground-breaking economic agreements. Bilateral trade was worth NZ$40 billion in 2022 and could reach $50 billion by 2030.

There might even be scope for cooperation over China’s position on a political settlement of the war in Ukraine. Despite New Zealand and most Western nations being sceptical about the initiative, it’s fair to say Chinese authorities would value New Zealand’s input.

But it’s also fair to say Hipkins was wise to visit now, given what he has coming up in his calendar: the NATO summit in July, and a decision on whether New Zealand should join “pillar two” of the AUKUS security pact between the US, UK and Australia.

Both things will concern China. And despite Beijing’s appreciation of New Zealand’s diplomatic approach – including Hipkins’ reluctance to characterise Xi Jinping as a “dictator” – the timing of this red-carpet visit has been ideal

https://twitter.com/1NewsNZ/status/1673620447345139713?t=ug4H1OsE--MH2kQXoqKqDA&s=19

Claim and counter-claim

So New Zealand walks a fine line with China, and beneath the diplomatic niceties there is a growing fault line. When Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta visited China earlier this year and expressed New Zealand’s “deep concerns” over human rights, Hong Kong and Taiwan, some media suggested she’d been “harangued” by her Chinese counterpart.

Mahuta has said the conversation was merely “robust”, but there’s no denying China’s combativeness over criticism or threat.

https://twitter.com/NZStuffPolitics/status/1673498912823603200?t=ZDZE9SRz6Ei5YjwcG-MLtw&s=19

When British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said China posed “the greatest challenge of our age to global security and prosperity” at May’s G7 summit in Japan (which came on top of an official communiqué tacitly focused on China), Beijing hit back at what it called “smears” and “slander”.

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