Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta is headed to Beijing, in the government’s first ministerial visit to China, since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mahuta flies out tomorrow to meet with her Chinese counterpart, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, the visit coming at a time of growing divide between eastern and western nations on both geopolitical and economic fronts.
“New Zealand’s relationship with China is one of our most important, complex and wide ranging. Last year we marked fifty years of diplomatic relations between our two countries,” Nanaia Mahuta said.
“China is integral to New Zealand’s economic recovery but our relationship is far broader - spanning cultural, educational and sporting links.
Mahuta says she intends to discuss ‘areas where we cooperate’, such as on trade, people-to-people and climate and environmental issues.
“I will continue to advocate for approaches and outcomes that reflect New Zealand’s interests and values, including on human rights.”
The visit comes at what some observers have called the ‘lowest-point’ in China’s relationship with allied nations, since President Richard Nixon moved to normalise relations with the communist country in 1972.
China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with President Xi even going so far as to bring forward a state visit to the Kremlin to meet with Vladimir Putin, just days after the International Criminal Courts issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president on charges of genocide.
Beijing last week condemned the signing of the AUKUS deal, in which the UK and USA will provide Australia with nuclear powered submarines to patrol Australia’s waters, and a new U.S. security services report which pinned the Covid-19 pandemic on an accidental leak from a lab in China’s Wuhan region.
“I intend to raise New Zealand’s concerns about key regional and global security challenges, including the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Mahuta said Monday.
“I will continue to advocate for approaches and outcomes that reflect New Zealand’s interests and values, including on human rights.”
China is Aotearoa’s largest trading partner and during her two days in Beijing, Mahuta will also meet with a range of business leaders and take part in a breakfast roundtable of prominent female leaders.
“This visit provides an opportunity to have a constructive discussion across a broad range of areas - both where our interests and values align, like that of climate change, and where they differ,” Nanaia Mahuta said.
