Today's visit is not a panacea but it will be the first step in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern taking control of the relationship. Photo / NZME
Today's visit is not a panacea but it will be the first step in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern taking control of the relationship. Photo / NZME
COMMENT:
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been at pains to answer a question no one has been particularly bothered about - why she cut back her trip to China to just one day, - today - following the devastating terrorist attack in Christchurch.
The real question is why she isgoing at all. Why could she not have postponed the visit altogether and taken a full week later in the year, with a full business delegation, as previously planned?
The answer is almost certainly that she could not have been guaranteed a slot later in the year. And she needed to send a strong message to China that she is committed to handling it better after a very prickly start.
Even if she had been promised a visit later in the year, she could not have put up with months wondering if China might suddenly have another scheduling problem in response to a slight over something she or Foreign Minister Winston Peters might be planning.
Given the importance of China to New Zealand, No 1 trading partner, in a perfect world she would have made her first trip as PM in the first half of last year.
But establishing a Government from a standing start, the complexity of the Coalition, the first Budget and the fact she was due to give birth in June meant an early visit was an unreasonable expectation.
A scheduled trip later in the year was cancelled because a short-notice visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe understandably took precedence.
It was a sensible decision for Ardern to seize the moment, if even for a day.
It is not a relationship in crisis but it has been strained compared with the level of comfort developed over nine years with National, which in turn was turbo-charged by Helen Clark and Phil Goff securing a free trade agreement.
The Foreign Minister of the day, Winston Peters, opposed the deal but his influence on the relationship was more limited because he did not sit at the Cabinet table in formal coalition. Helen Clark was firmly in control of New Zealand's foreign policy.
The strains of today were largely a result of the new Government mismanaging changes it made in its approach to China, primarily led by Peters. They were changes not signalled to the public or to China.
New Zealand has never been part of the finger-wagging club and when it moved a step closer to the practised finger-wagers Australian and American on the South China Seas, Pacific influence, China expressed its displeasure.
Jacinda Ardern met China's Premier Li Keqiang in Manila in November 2017. Photo / Audrey Young
Today's visit is not a panacea but it will be the first step in Ardern taking control of the relationship.
NZ and China: A decade of engagement
2009 Prime Minister John Key visits China, a year after former PM Helen Clark signs China's first free trade deal with a western country.
2010 Key visits again, plus 16 other ministerial visits. Xi Jinping visits NZ as Vice-President.
2013 NZ and China in joint aid project for Cook Islands. Key returns, plus 11 ministerial visits.
2014 Two visits by Key (one for Apec) plus nine ministerial visits. Xi Jinping visits NZ. He and Key announce target of $30 billion two-way trade by 2020. Plans for new Beijing embassy announced.
2015 NZ is the first western country to support China's Asian Infrastructure Development Bank. Fourteen ministerial visits to China.
2016 Key visits China plus seven ministerial visits.
2017 First round of talks to upgrade Free Trade Agreement.NZ agrees to cooperate on Belt and Road Initiative during visit by Premier Li Keqiang. Two ministerial visits. Change of Government.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks at the China Business Summit 2018. Photo / Michael Craig
2018 Pacific Reset launched by Foreign Minister Winston Peters to counter China's influence. China protests over criticism in Strategic Defence Policy Statement. Peters questions Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese telco Huawei is black-balled by GCSB as part of Spark's 5G plans. Peters pleads for US to engage more in the South West Pacific. Six ministerial visits.
2019 Two-way trade passes $30 billion. China-NZ Year of Tourism launch cancelled by China. Ambassador Madam Wu says NZ and China need to build a more resilient relationship. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern approves five ministerial visits. China-NZ Year of Tourism launch rescheduled. Ardern's one-day visit.
