Cook Islands saga another test for Govt's China policy as Luxon hits Beijing
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the 'areas of risk' in the strategic deal between the Cook Islands and China include security, defence, sovereignty and international border arrangements.
These risk factors are now being worked through by officials from the two countries, and the Cook Islands foreign ministry says a new Formal Dialogue Mechanism has been set up to assess the agreement and identify risk mitigation.
While a statement from the Cook Islands on Thursday says officials met in April and May, on Thursday the Cook Islands News revealed the New Zealand Government had pulled more than $18 million of development aid to the Pacific country on June 4.
The timing could not have been much more awkward for the Prime Minister.
The news dropped the same day Luxon held his first political talks in China, and on the eve of his high-stakes meetings with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang in Beijing.
While Luxon went out of his way to explain this retaliation was about the NZ-Cooks relationship – not China – Foreign Minister Winston Peters singled out the superpower's role in this relationship breakdown while in France just 10 days ago.
'As partners engage with our region, it is important that they do so in a manner that is transparent and supportive of good governance.
'Not all partners take this approach. Some ask Pacific partners not to publish agreements or avoid the Forum Secretariat when organising regional engagements,' he said, going on to say that 'external pushes' in the region were looking to 'coerce, cajole and constrain'.
Friday's meetings between Luxon and Xi and Li would show whose version China deemed most plausible, with the potential the topic would make its way onto the agenda for the leaders' meetings.
Among the other topics of disagreement between the two countries expected to be raised on Friday were China's combat exercises in the Tasman Sea and Pacific, China's actions in the Pacific more broadly, its unlawful actions in the South China Sea and human rights.
Both sides acknowledged there would always be areas where the two countries disagreed, but the relationship was mature enough to talk about these issues – as long as that was done 'predictably, consistently, publicly and privately'.
While the snags in the relationship were well-traversed, those in the room would be looking for the nuance in how China spoke about certain issues to get a better read of their feelings on particular matters.
Beyond geopolitical issues, both countries would also raise the importance of the trading relationship – something Luxon had emphasised during the first two days of his fleeting first visit to China.
While in Shanghai, members of the business delegation accompanying the Prime Minister signed deals expected to generate $871m.
China is New Zealand's largest trading partner and two-way trade was worth $39 billion. But New Zealand exports accounted for just 0.3 percent of China's imports.
'So we just need a little bit more and we're doing exceptionally well for ourselves,' Luxon said.
During Luxon's first political meeting with Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining, both sides emphasised the strong trading relationship in their opening remarks.
The PM in his first major political meeting of the tour, with Shanghai party secretary Chen Jining. Photo: Pool/Thomas Manch
And in the afternoon he visited Fudan University to highlight the importance of the international student market as part of his Government's growth plan.
But Labour foreign policy spokesperson Phil Twyford said there was a disconnect between Luxon's security and economic policies when it came to China.
'What I'm watching with the Prime Minister's visit to Beijing is whether or not he can bring together the two straight, very divergent narrative strands on our relationship with China that he and this Government have been maintaining now for some time,' he said.
'On one hand, it's a special relationship, our most important trading partner … On the other hand, there is hardly an official foreign policy and defence document in circulation right now that doesn't basically position China as a military threat to New Zealand.'
Twyford said he saw those two things as 'quite a contradiction'.
China and the US have led to a pull away from the historically bipartisan approach on foreign policy, with Labour criticising the Government's stance on Aukus and questioning the state of New Zealand's foreign policy.
'I have no doubt that his Chinese hosts will be watching very carefully to try to read the Prime Minister's sense of the relationship and where New Zealand wants to go with it, but right now, I think that contradiction is a vulnerability for New Zealand's national interests.'
Luxon said he disagreed with Labour's categorisation, but not before taking a swing at the party by questioning who was in charge of foreign policy: Phil Twyford, Chris Hipkins, Helen Clark?
'This is a government that's been crystal clear from day one: our economic prosperity is very much tied to our security. This is a country that wants to lift its urgency and its intensity in all of its relationships across the Indo-Pacific.
'We can do well for ourselves in the years ahead, and it requires us to build relationships at a top-to-top level and then actually have our business sectors actually engage with each other,' he said.
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