Hipkins’ crucial week in China
The focus is on trade and tourism, but the prime minister will also need to tread carefully on some diplomatic thin ice.
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, June 26, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: National unveils new law and order policies at party conference and Invercargill mayor gives enthusiastic welcome to ‘Stop Co-Governance’ tour. But first, a very big team NZ rolls into Beijing.
In China, a massive show of NZ trade and cultural might
For the first time in four years, a New Zealand prime minister is visiting China. Chris Hipkins landed in Beijing overnight, accompanied by a “frankly huge business delegation” and Te Matatini champions Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, for a week of trade talks and a first meeting with president Xi Jinping, reports editor Madeleine Chapman, who is tagging along. Today’s itinerary includes a pōwhiri at the New Zealand embassy, and a “Showcase NZ” event to promote our travel, trade and education opportunities. Tomorrow Hipkins meets with Zhao Leji, Chairman of the National People’s Congress, and President Xi. On Wednesday there’s a meeting with Premier Li Qiang, Xi’s second in command, Thursday sees the delegation fly to Shanghai for more tourism and trade announcements, and on Friday they all fly home to New Zealand. Phew.
Trade, trade and more trade
So what’s it all meant to achieve? Hipkins has been clear that this is a trade mission first and foremost. "There's not much more bread and butter about trade for a country like New Zealand. We are a trading nation,” he told reporters on Friday, prior to his departure. However Hipkins shouldn’t expect many “tangible wins” from the trip, says Sam Sachdeva, author of a new book on the China-NZ relationship. The week will be more about “vibes and photo ops” than “look, we’ve signed this new, shiny agreement”, he tells Toby Manhire on Gone By Lunchtime. But in China, vibes are supremely important, says former prime minister John Key. Both Chinese businesses and its population “take their instructions and the guidance from what the party in Beijing believes is correct”, Key tells the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan. When the president speaks well of New Zealand “that carries a lot of weight”.
A diplomatic tightrope
Beyond all the handshaking, the challenge for Hipkins will be to not be sucked into saying anything that can be used by Chinese state media to push “the Chinese line on things like [Australia-US-UK trilateral pact] Aukus, like Five Eyes”, says Sachdeva. Hipkins is the first of the Five Eyes leaders to visit China since the pandemic, notes the Herald’s Claire Trevett (paywalled), reflecting the deteriorating relations between the other Five Eye nations and China. The war in Ukraine is another sensitive subject that Hipkins might have to tiptoe around during his meeting with President Xi, especially given Putin’s weakened position following this weekend’s stunning attempted mutiny inside Russia. On top of all that, the Australian reported this weekend that foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta copped an “epic haranguing” by her counterpart Qin Gang during her own visit to Beijing in March. The dressing down came after Mahuta criticised Qin’s “wolf warrior diplomacy”, a combative and confrontational approach adopted by Chinese diplomats under the Xi administration.
Has China fallen out of love with Brand NZ?
The 29 strong business delegation accompanying Hipkins and his political team shows the importance of the trading relationship between the two countries. But is New Zealand putting too many eggs in the China basket? Calls for trade diversification are growing, reports Lucy Craymer of Reuters, driven by “fears the market could become more challenging if geopolitical challenges heat up” along with a “growing number of small companies that see markets in Australia and North America as offering better opportunities”. For those businesses already in China, it’s getting tougher to hold onto market share, writes Businesdesk’s Dileepa Foneska (paywalled). Gone are the days when NZ products were flying off the shelf – now “a cultural tilt towards patriotism and nationalism means Chinese consumers are starting to prefer domestic brands to foreign ones”.
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National unveils new law and order policies at party conference
National will stop judges applying sentencing discounts of more than 40%, bring back a (tweaked) Three Strikes law, and introduce a "use-it-and-lose-it" rule to prevent repeat offenders receiving sentence discounts for youth or remorse more than once. The latest additions to its law and order policy were announced at the party’s annual conference in Wellington over the weekend, where party leader Christopher Luxon delivered policies in line with the “back on track” slogan, and aimed at “pleasing the party base and a decent chunk of the voters as well”, writes the Herald’s Claire Trevett. National will also extend rehab to those on remand, a policy the government is already looking at introducing. Justice minister Kiri Allan says not only would the new sentencing rules be an “egregious overreach” of judicial independence, longer sentences would end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars more each year.
Invercargill mayor vocally backs ‘Stop Co-Governance’ tour
Mayor Nobby Clark welcomed the controversial ‘Stop Co-Governance’ meeting to Invercargill on Saturday with a 15-minute speech which included criticisms of the “Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF), Three Waters, ‘cancel culture’, council mana whenua representatives, and ‘the bastardisation of the English language’,” reports the Otago Daily Times’ Ben Tomsett. Later meeting organiser Julian Batchelor said a number of his supporters had told him they’d purchased guns. While he said he advocated for a peaceful solution, “you have to change your attitude because we can’t be just nice little Kiwis anymore. You have to say ‘I’m on the warpath,’ and we’re going to stop this." A New Zealand police spokesperson told the Herald’s Lincoln Tan, "There is absolutely nothing to substantiate the claims made at the meeting in relation to New Zealanders arming themselves.” Mayor Clark said that while he doesn’t agree with everything said at the meeting, he “probably agree[s] with a majority”.
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Chris Hipkins and the China challenge
As PM Hipkins leads a big delegation for a big week in China, Gone By Lunchtime’s Toby Manhire is joined by Newsroom's national affairs editor Sam Sachdeva (author of The China Tightrope: Navigating New Zealand's relationship with a world superpower) to discuss the state of the relationship, the shifting fault lines and the tripwires Chris Hipkins needs to avoid as he prepares to meet President Xi Jinping.
Click and Collect
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Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.
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