Progress, but not a win, is how Jacinda Ardern summed up her face-to-face meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping. Political editor Jo Moir was in the room with the leaders for their first reunion in three years.
Analysis: Jacinda Ardern seemed more cautious than usual recalling the issues she discussed with Xi Jinping in their extended 50-minute bilateral meeting in Bangkok on Friday.
She’d be forgiven for being careful after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was left red-faced after a public dressing down from Xi, who accused him of saying too much about their meeting and getting things wrong.
The whole thing was caught on camera and broadcast to the world near the end of the G20 Summit in Bali before both jumped on a plane to make their way to APEC in Thailand.
Ardern maintains she and former prime ministers have always been consistent about New Zealand’s independent foreign policy and have never shied away from calling out differences with China, of which there are many.
In Friday’s meeting Covid protocol was at the highest of any meeting Ardern has attended in the past week with three metres between the two delegation’s tables and at least one metre in distancing between each chair.
It’s the 50th anniversary of formal diplomatic ties with China and when Ardern last visited Beijing in 2019 she said she’d like to return with a trade delegation.
Covid has prevented that happening but at the conclusion of Friday’s meeting the leaders agreed to look for a date that suits both parties.
While that could be categorised as a win for Ardern, it is cancelled out somewhat by Xi continuing to hold firm on his position on the Uyghur people despite the Prime Minister specifically raising the human rights abuses in the meeting.
“China sees New Zealand as an important partner and friend, and we need to continue to aim for better, and take the China and New Zealand comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level." - Xi Jinping
Ardern says the subject matter remains the same when it comes to issues that New Zealand and China fundamentally disagree on, but the fact there was face-to-face, “decent and constructive” dialogue about it counts.
“I wouldn’t break it down simply to have we resolved five different issues on where we take different views.
“What I’d take as an important signifier is the ability to keep having face-to-face meetings in a mature manner,” she said.
“I won’t say one singular meeting does everything resolve.”
And while she said “wins” isn’t language she would use for bilateral meetings, “progress” was an adjective she accepted as a fair characterisation of how she felt things had gone.
At the top of the meeting while Kiwi and Chinese media were in the room, Xi through a translator remarked on the close ties between both countries and the “sound and steady growth” that has been made.
“China sees New Zealand as an important partner and friend, and we need to continue to aim for better, and take the China and New Zealand comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level,” he said.
In response Ardern thanked Xi for the “generous” amount of time he gave during New Zealand’s hosting of a virtual APEC last year.
When she began speaking to the “different systems and different world views” between the two countries, Chinese officials and security began quietly rounding up media and asking them to leave the room.
Ardern, noting what was happening sped up her remarks and finished by saying how important it was to “continue to work to sustain the international architecture, the rules, the norms that we rely on, because they have served our region well for many decades, but they are being tested now as well.”
At that point the door closed on the last two Kiwi stragglers still in the room.
It was the fourth time this week security from host countries ushered, or in some cases man-handled, media out of the room before Ardern had completed her opening remarks.
Asked about it after the meeting, Ardern said she hadn’t read too much into it, noting it was possibly a reflection that she needed to stop talking sooner.
Having gone into the meeting with the intention of asking Xi to use the influence he has with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to try put an end to the invasion of Ukraine, Ardern was reluctant to say at its conclusion how the President had responded.
But she did say the bulk of the 50-minute meeting, which was only set down for 30 minutes, was spent discussing issues of the day, in particular an intercontinental missile launched by North Korea just hours earlier, and Russia’s illegal war.
It wasn’t lost on Ardern that the summits this week had been “coinciding with some significant escalations”.
“You saw a critical juncture on the border with Poland and you saw clear heads prevail.” - Jacinda Ardern
Asked whether she thought North Korea was being deliberate in its actions, she said without being able to read the mind of the North Korean leadership it was impossible to know if it was “deliberate provocations or reactions”.
The missile launch wasn’t the only global threat encountered this week and Ardern says that is exactly why New Zealand needs to be at the summit table.
In the early hours of Wednesday news broke of an explosion in Poland near the border of Ukraine, which initially Poland’s President blamed on Russia – putting the world on high alert bracing for a potential strike back by Nato countries.
Investigations showed in less than 24 hours that it was more likely Ukraine was responsible, albeit accidentally, as it attempted to fend off Russian strikes.
Ardern said the potential for escalation in that situation was significant.
“There’s no question that the world is at a very difficult juncture, and I can understand people will be feeling anxious about some of the global events they see right now.
“I take heart from the fact that in all the conversations I had there is still that common ground, with the exception of Russia. People want peace and stability, they want dialogue and they’re willing to use diplomacy,” she told Newsroom.
“You saw a critical juncture on the border with Poland and you saw clear heads prevail.”
Ardern heads home to face an ongoing cost of living crisis on New Zealand shores but told Newsroom she had no doubt her presence at both the East Asia Summit and APEC was necessary this week.
She says it’s up to her to make sure people “see and hear the importance” of the summits.
“Peace and stability’s an economic issue, it is impacting our cost of living in New Zealand.
“It’s in our interest, not just for our wellbeing but for our economy, that there’s peace and stability."
