Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the lack of notice given to New Zealand ahead of a Chinese naval live firing incident in the Tasman Sea was a “failure” of the NZ-China relationship.
The comments come after Peters and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held “wide-ranging and constructive” talks to bookend his trip to Beijing.
It’s been less than a week since three Chinese warships carried out live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea, forcing commercial flights to divert course “due to the lack of advanced notification of the firing”.
Peters said he raised the issue, along with similar live fire drills conducted off the coast of Taiwan, directly during the roughly two and a half hour meeting.
didn’t enquire about why the fleet was in the Tasman Sea, given their presence there was legal under international law.
“(We) talked to them about the lack of notice that you would expect for a country like ours, and a relationship with China, to have had.”
“[We] emphasised to them that we would have expected to be notified a long time earlier than that”
He said Wang took the concerns on board and that having an improved arrangement to avoid further similar incidents was “under consideration”.
Peters’ said he didn’t enquire about why the fleet was in the Tasman Sea, given their presence there was legal under international law.
A second, major topic of discussion on the agenda was China’s increasing presence in the Pacific.
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Wednesday’s bilateral meeting was held in the same month Beijing inked a controversial deal with the Cook Islands, sparking a diplomatic row with New Zealand. Peters had previously called the agreement a matter of “significant concern”.
The deputy prime minister said he raised New Zealand’s strong relationships with the Pacific, including New Zealand's special constitutional relationships with the Cook Islands, among other countries.
Peters said China had misunderstood that the freshly inked deal with the Cook Islands was a tripartite deal, which also included New Zealand. He said Beijing needed more information from Wellington about the nature of the relationship.
He said he explained New Zealand’s constitutional arrangement with the Cook Islands, and is now comfortable that China fully understands what it means to be a realm country.
Peters, who had previously called for the release of all agreements signed between China and the Cook Islands, said “we got more information out of China on those deals then we ever got out of the Cook Islands.”
The importance of the international rules-based order, and institutions that have underpinned the stability and success of the Indo-Pacific, were also discussed.
Peters described the New Zealand-China relationship as “very significant” and “comprehensive”, and said he was pleased to reconnect with Foreign Minister Wang.
The visit comes one year after the Chinese foreign minister visited New Zealand, and is Peters’ sixth official visit to Beijing. He first visited in 1997.
“China is New Zealand’s largest trading partner, and our long-standing relationship has been shaped over many years by strong connections between our people,” he said.
The bilateral meeting concludes Peters’ trip to Beijing. He will next travel to Mongolia, and South Korea.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has also departed for Vietnam with a senior business delegation, as New Zealand looks to south-east Asian economies for trade. Luxon said Vietnam was a "rising star" of Southeast Asia, with one of the fastest growing economies in the region.
