KEY POINTS:
In beijing last week, it was like a parallel universe.
Everybody I spoke with was cockahoop about the new opportunities that would be opened by the China free trade deal.
But their success has been mired by the Faustian pact they struck with Winston Peters to gain his party's support for the Labour minority Government.
Clark and Goff knew they would cop a xenophobic backlash back home as the Foreign Affairs Minister sought to get his party over the five per cent threshold at the forthcoming election. But nobody expected Peters might also bag the trade deal while overseas, as New Zealand's foreign minister.
The view from the business camp was stark - if Clark and John Key could combine forces on anti-smacking legislation, why couldn't they do the same to smack down Peters for shafting New Zealand's major foreign policy success?
Clark's top ministers have all played home and away at various times for electoral purposes.
Internationally, Clark has promoted New Zealand's economic reforms as an integral part of the country's economic success, while bemoaning domestically the misery the policies formulated by Sir Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson caused within the country.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen has promoted the central bank's independence while talking to offshore financial markets, while hunting for policies internally to reduce some of the more damaging effects of its anti-inflation policies.
Goff whacked at US domestic interference in the last election campaign. But quickly cosied up to Washington as Defence and Trade Minister after the Government was returned.
Labour's top echelon are committed internationalists. I've always found their practice of running a sophisticated agenda offshore, while stirring up domestic unease for political purposes, cynical in the extreme.
But nobody expected Peters to turn home and away on its head by indicating he would dump on the deal both inside and outside of New Zealand.
Last week Clark told Newstalk ZB Peters had "certainly given me an assurance ... that he would not be commenting on the Free Trade Agreement with China while overseas, other than to note that the negotiations have been successfully concluded".
Clark and Goff rightfully chalked up plaudits from the business delegation in Beijing for successfully negotiating the ground-breaking free trade pact.
The delegation represented close to half our overall trade with China.
They've not necessarily got everything they want from the negotiations. These are of necessity a "give and take" affair.
But in a global environment, with protectionist pressures rising, New Zealand's achievement in getting its third-largest trading partner committed to reduce tariffs to zero on virtually all major export categories - particularly agriculture - is a big plus.
Winston Peters knows this. He's played in the international pond for long enough to know that China's agricultural commitments go a long way further than anything the United States or Europe has put on the table for New Zealand.
In the run-up to Helen Clark's visit, Peters was instrumental in defusing bilateral tensions over Tibet. He played his foreign affairs role to perfection.
Peters doesn't even appear to be opposed to all bilateral free trade deals despite his concerns over New Zealand's lack of negotiating coin. United States Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, chairman of the House foreign affairs sub-committee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, said after their meeting last year that trade was Peters' priority. "That was the main issue we discussed, he was trying to see what the parameters might be... on how we can establish a dialogue on doing a free-trade agreement with New Zealand."
He's also forged a strong relationship with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill, by acting as an interlocutor with North Korea, and marking out New Zealand's utility to the United States through a strategic partnership in the Pacific.
If New Zealand and the US move on to bilateral negotiations after the expansion of the Pacific-Four agreement, Peters will have helped pave the path to that success.
So why is he playing party pooper with China? Internationally, the Sino-NZ deal is being read as a positive for international trade, a signal that China will not slow the pace with which it is integrating itself into the global economy.
Peters may decry the unilateral liberalisation of the New Zealand economy over two decades ago.
But there's not much point in giving China stick for failing to mirror this country's steps. The Faustian pact that Clark has struck with Peters just makes New Zealand, and New Zealanders, look ridiculous.
* Tapu Misa's regular column will now appear on this page in Monday's Herald. From next week, Brian Rudman begins a national issues column on this page, with new Wednesday columnist Tracey Barnett.
