New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins has disagreed with US President Joe Biden’s remark that Xi Jinping is a “dictator”, as he prepares to meet the Chinese leader on an official trade trip to China.
“No, and the form of government that China has is a matter for the Chinese people,” Hipkins told reporters when asked about Biden’s description. Asked whether the Chinese people had a say in the form their government took, he said: “if they wanted to change their system of government, then that would be a matter for them.”
Pressed by journalists on how the Chinese people could viably enforce a change in the way they are governed, Hipkins said, “well, that would be a matter for them”.
Hipkins’ remarks come as he prepares to visit China leading a trade delegation and meet Xi, the first time a New Zealand prime minister has done so since the Covid-19 pandemic began. Announcing the trip earlier this week, Hipkins emphasised the country’s economic importance to New Zealand. “China represents nearly a quarter of all our exports, was our second-largest source of tourists pre-Covid and is a significant source of international students, so it’s a critical part of our economic recovery,” he said in a statement.
New Zealand is highly dependent on China for trade, and it is New Zealand’s largest trade partner by a considerable margin. The relationship between the two countries has been strained in recent years – by Beijing’s increasingly assertive pursuit of its interests in the Pacific, human rights abuses in Xinjiang and crackdowns in Hong Kong – but New Zealand has been more cautious and less forthright than many of its western allies in comments condemning those actions. At times over the years, that balancing act has come under criticism: a Canadian government-published report labelled New Zealand the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes security alliance, and former leader Jacinda Ardern came under attack from a UK Tory MP for “sucking up” to China.
Discussing his planned meeting with Xi earlier in the months, Hipkins said New Zealand prided itself in being “consistent” in its approach. “That means that where we have human rights concerns we will raise them. Where we have concerns around trade or any other foreign policy issue, we will raise those,” he said.
Biden’s “dictator” comment came shortly after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had met Xi on a trip aimed at easing tensions between the two countries. The US president said Xi had been embarrassed when a Chinese spy balloon was blown off course over the US. “That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn’t know about it,” Biden said.
The remark provoked immediate pushback from Beijing. Biden’s comment was a “political provocation” and had “seriously violated China’s political dignity”, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Wednesday.
