As New Zealand votes, Jacinda Ardern's Labour government walks fine line on China ties

On paper, China should loom large in New Zealand's parliamentary elections later this month.

Like its fellow Five Eyes intelligence partner Australia, the country has been shaken by claims of Chinese interference in politics, and it has defied Beijing with its stances on Hong Kong, the Uygurs and the South China Sea. And like its neighbour across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand relies on China more than any other country for its trade, sending it almost one-third of its exports.

But in an election that is widely expected to return Jacinda Ardern as prime minister on October 17, China has barely registered a mention - a reflection, in part, of how harmonious Wellington has managed to keep relations with Beijing, compared with its anglophone peers.

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While Australia and New Zealand's other Five Eyes alliance partners - the Britain, Canada and the United States - wrestle with their most acrimonious relations with China in decades, New Zealand is walking a fine line that has allowed it to largely avoid blowback from its biggest trading partner, even while upholding many of the same policies and positions as its Western allies.

"New Zealand is more diplomatic and probably makes much better use of behind-closed-door channels to convey its displeasure over matters in dispute," said Alexander Gillespie, a professor of international law at the University of Waikato. "I would not say New Zealand is afraid, but I would say it is aware of how much is at risk if it pushes too hard."

Despite often emulating her Western counterparts on substantive policy, Ardern, whose centre-left Labour Party has been leading the rival National Party by double digits for weeks, has taken a distinct, less confrontational tack towards Beijing.

When the US, Australia, Britain and Canada in May released a joint statement condemning Hong Kong's national security law as a threat to rights and freedoms in the city, Ardern's government issued its own separate statement expressing concern.

It contained nearly identical wording, but did not refer to Beijing's international obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration that set out the terms of Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. New Zealand soon after cancelled its extradition treaty with Hong Kong, but did not follow Australia in offering resettlement to Hongkongers who wished to leave the city.

On a visit to Beijing last year, Ardern reportedly raised concerns about the treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang, but only in private, and earlier this year told a business summit that while relations were "in good shape", the sides had "different perspectives" on issues including the "situation of the Uygur people".

Although Wellington has avoided strident rhetoric on the South China Sea, its 2018 defence white paper highlighted China's island-building and military build-up in the disputed waters, arguing that Beijing sought to "restore claimed historical levels of influence" and "some actions in pursuit of these aims challenge the existing order".

The government has maintained an ambiguous stance on banning Chinese tech giant Huawei since the Government Communications Security Bureau in 2018 described it as a security risk, insisting that any decision would be country-blind and made by security services, not politicians.

And while New Zealand has experienced controversies over alleged Chinese interference - including revelations that former National Party MP Jian Yang taught English at a Chinese training facility for spies before emigrating to New Zealand - it has not emulated Australia's sweeping anti-foreign interference laws that drew Beijing's ire when they were introduced in 2018.

Former National Party MP Jian Yang caused a stir in 2017 after it emerged he had spent a decade at top military colleges in China, where he was born. Photo: AP alt=Former National Party MP Jian Yang caused a stir in 2017 after it emerged he had spent a decade at top military colleges in China, where he was born. Photo: AP

Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago, said while there were voices in New Zealand who argued that Beijing's political influence activities had reached a "critical level", that view was "contested, and New Zealand's more nuanced foreign policy probably means it will not be targeted in the same way as Australia, which is seen in Beijing to be much closer to Washington".

Although the National Party is sometimes seen as slightly more dovish due to its pro-business stance, Ardern's approach reflects a long-standing bipartisan consensus on outreach to China, whose purchases of New Zealand exports have quadrupled since the signing of a free-trade agreement in 2008.

In 1997, New Zealand became the first Western country to support China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WHO). It was also the first Western nation to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative, in 2015 and 2017, respectively.

New Zealand, which is home to about 5.7 million people, has a long history of independent foreign policy despite its isolated location and close links to larger Western powers.

In the 1980s, then Labour Prime Minister David Lange banned nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ships from entering New Zealand waters, leading to the country's suspension from the ANZUS Treaty military alliance involving the US and Australia. The ban, which resulted in a three-decade pause in US warships visiting the country, remains in place to this day. New Zealand, unlike Australia, also opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

"New Zealand has maintained an independent foreign policy for the last 35 years," said Paul Clark, a professor of Chinese at the University of Auckland. "We are able to keep our distance from disputations on all sides. I think Beijing respects that and may even find it helpful. New Zealand can be a useful bridge or testing ground for Beijing's policies or behaviours."

In the absence of any major disagreement on foreign policy, the contest between Ardern and National Party leader Judith Collins, a former lawyer, has focused on the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and bread-and-butter issues such as housing and health care.

"Foreign policy plays very little part in New Zealand parliamentary elections," said Jason Young, director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington. "There is generally a consensus among the major parties about foreign policy and very little difference between the two major parties."

Young added: "The major parties have a similar strategy of calling out Chinese behaviour when needed while trying to maintain a working political relationship to facilitate economic relations and cooperation internationally."

Although Beijing has verbally lashed out at Wellington, including when Foreign Minister Winston Peters earlier this year expressed support for Taiwan's membership in the WHO, it has not threatened the country's economy.

After Canberra in April called for an international independent inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, Beijing slapped tariffs and other restrictions on Australian beef, barley and wine, in moves widely seen in Australia as economic retaliation. Chinese state media has contrasted New Zealand favourably with its bigger neighbour, with a July article in the nationalist Global Times tabloid claiming that Chinese importers could turn to New Zealand producers if Australia continued its "anti-China campaign".

But Young, the Victoria University of Wellington professor, said New Zealand, as a small country, could not be complacent about larger countries using "economic coercion to shape our foreign policy".

"Any type of serious economic action on New Zealand would have a significant impact on public opinion here, which is already strained and would highlight long-term risks for New Zealand businesses, leading them to diversify out of the China market," he said.

Hongzhi Gao, a senior research fellow at the NZ Contemporary China Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington, said New Zealand could face challenges managing ties in the future as criticism of China inevitably increased in the country. "There will be more and more, and stronger and stronger voices and criticism of China in New Zealand in the coming months and years, depending on whathappens in China," Gao said.

"These voices may not be what Beijing wants to hear, but, once again, New Zealand is a democracy, valuing freedom of speech," he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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