Freshly back from China and about to jet to Europe, the Prime Minister is looking more comfortable than ever threading the complexities of both the US and China into New Zealand’s view of the world, writes Jo Moir
Analysis: In the increasingly “unpredictable and complex world” we all live in, the Prime Minister has made it clear that no matter its size, New Zealand won’t be a “bystander” in the changing global landscape.
It was Chris Hipkins’ first foreign policy speech on home soil since becoming Prime Minister just six months ago and came on the back of a raft of international visits to, Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, and as recently as last week, China.
Notably, too, it was delivered just hours before he jets off to Brussels and Lithuania, where he has been invited to Nato as the North Atlantic alliance convenes to deal with myriad challenges, most significantly the war in Ukraine.
Hipkins appeared buoyed on Friday by his successful trade mission to Beijing and Shanghai and the warm reception he received from China’s President Xi Jinping.
Not one to blow his own trumpet during a live-streamed press conference, Hipkins wouldn’t confirm or deny to Newsroom whether his recent trip to China and the challenges that come with navigating that relationship meant he had come home a better diplomat.
Clearly a fast-learner, Hipkins has absorbed a lot of what to do and what not to do on his trips abroad, and at the half-year mark is already a far better diplomat, knowing when to stick to safe words like being “consistent” with China and the US.
But he also has a better grip on when saying more is appropriate, as was the case with him telling the audience of diplomats, ambassadors, and business leaders that the “haranguing” his Foreign Affairs Minister got from China in March was as reported.
The Australian newspaper revealed the tense meeting between Nanaia Mahuta and her counterpart in an article just a couple of days before Hipkins headed to China, which meant he had to answer to it on arrival in Beijing.
Reading between the lines of what both Hipkins and Mahuta have since said, it was clear that most of what was reported was true but being on Chinese soil Hipkins played it safe by not detailing the ins and outs of that meeting.
Doing so wouldn’t have been well received by his own counterparts, who he was about to sit down with at the Great Hall of the People.
Back in Wellington, Hipkins was well within his rights to make clear exactly how that meeting played out, and how Mahuta gave as good as she got.
“Reports emerged just before my trip of a robust conversation between our Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta and the Chinese Foreign Minister. You will have noticed we didn’t deny that,” Hipkins said on Friday.
“Our approach has always been that we are consistent in asserting our interests, we are predictable as we advance our values and we are respectful as we engage in our relationship with China.”
It was a speech that laid out the US as a “friend and partner” – the same two words Xi used to describe New Zealand in Beijing last week, but not reciprocated by Hipkins.
Hipkins saying “closing doors doesn’t serve us well in the long term and engagement is always preferable to isolation” doesn’t stray far from his predecessor’s own rhetoric on how best to deal with China.
In a speech to the China Business Summit last year, Jacinda Ardern noted China was one of New Zealand’s “most important and complex relationships” but that it included a long history of engagement on both common interests and differences.
“In all of these areas we are willing to engage – consistently, predictably, and respectfully. But we will also advocate for approaches and outcomes that reflect New Zealand’s interests and values, and speak out on issues that do not,” Ardern said.
She too noted the “distinct political systems” New Zealand and China each have.
On Friday Hipkins referred to New Zealand having “democratic traditions” with some countries, but not China.
Asked by Newsroom to define “democratic traditions”, Hipkins said it came down to “free and fair elections” which New Zealand shared with the United Kingdom, United States and Australia.
And so how did he define the Chinese political system?
“That’s a matter for them, it’s clearly different to our own,” he told Newsroom.
For Hipkins there’s no better time to lose his diplomatic novice status than right as he boards a plane to Nato.
It was a speech that laid out the US as a “friend and partner” – the same two words Xi used to describe New Zealand in Beijing last week, but not reciprocated by Hipkins.
Much of the upcoming work around New Zealand’s defence strategy and dealing with cyberactors, some of whom are state sponsored, is a continuation of the work started under Ardern.
In a nod to his predecessor’s legacy, The Christchurch Call, Hipkins acknowledged the “extensive work programme” that has come out of that and how it is “strengthening our security and intelligence capabilities”.
Hipkins also pointed to New Zealand’s ever-growing relationship with the UK and EU through free-trade agreements and the fact the Australia relationship is the closest it has been in decades after giving equal citizenship rights to Kiwis living across the ditch earlier this year.
Closer to home, Hipkins referred to the Pacific reset, which was a foreign policy “pivot” for Labour’s first term in government when in coalition with New Zealand First.
He reiterated on Friday just how important climate change is for our closest neighbours, saying it was always the first thing that came up in talks with Pacific leaders.
Over almost 30 minutes the Prime Minister canvassed both the challenges and common interests with some of our biggest and smallest partners.
He acknowledged the delivery of some of his speeches in China last week were a “little more wooden” due to the fact they were pre-translated, leaving little time or room for last minute edits.
Friday’s effort was far from a snooze-fest, with the audience clearly engaged and impressed by what they were seeing and hearing.
For Hipkins there’s no better time to lose his diplomatic novice status than right as he boards a plane to Nato.
