Luxon headed to China in coming months
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will travel to China in the coming months, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said, after a “positive” meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Luxon and Peters welcomed Wang to Parliament on Monday, for the high-ranking Chinese official’s first visit to New Zealand since 2017.
Peters yesterday said he had a respectful, convivial and “very frank” meeting and dinner with Wang, with both committing to “heightening” the bilateral relationship while also exchanging views on issues including the contentious Aukus defence pact.
“We understood where he's coming from. I'm certain he understands where we're coming from,” Peters said.
He said Trade Minister Todd McClay would travel to China next month, and Luxon “not long after that”.
Luxon later said “nothing was confirmed” in his travel schedule, but he was invited to China.
China is New Zealand’s most important trading partner but the relationship has become more difficult for the Government to manage in recent years as tensions between Beijing and New Zealand’s traditional partners, particularly Australia, have risen and officials in Wellington have grown more concerned about outspoken but China’s assertiveness in the Pacific.
Peters said Wang raised Aukus, a pact between Australia, United Kingdom and the United States that will transfer nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in the coming decades, which China has vigorously opposed.
They had a “very frank, candid, and open conversation” about the issue, and Wang was well briefed on a recent meeting between New Zealand and Australian foreign and defence ministers at which New Zealand backed Aukus and expressed interest participating in the sharing of non-nuclear cutting-edge defence technologies.
“It was just a matter of making certain that he understood that we did not have imaginary concerns about long-term security.”
Peters said he believed any involvement in the Aukus agreement would not risk the trading relationship with China.
On China’s increasing forays into the Pacific and efforts to sign security agreements with Pacific nations, which have alarmed officials in Wellington, Peters said he spoke to Wang about the need to honour agreements and that the Pacific Island nations had to collectively manage their own security and defence.
"We want outside countries or other countries, not a part of that, [Pacific Islands] Forum relationship, to respect those agreements. And we specifically pointed to what those agreements were.
“They all point to we're going to do this together. That's what the Pacific Island countries including New Zealand and Australia have agreed.
“He demonstrated that he was aware of that arrangement. I can’t say any further than that.”
Peters said he told Wang of New Zealand’s concern that some Chinese firms were selling arms to Russia, supporting its ability to wage war against Ukraine, though New Zealand respected the Chinese Government had not supplied arms directly.
The pair had promised to “heighten” the New Zealand-China relationship by “doing what we’re doing better“, Peters said, including increasing the number of Chinese students coming to New Zealand.