It’s going to be a clammy week for Chris Hipkins. Late last night, Hipkins, tourism minister Peeni Henare, trade and export growth minister Damien O’Connor, 29 business delegates, 16 Matatini champions and a gaggle of media and handlers landed in Beijing ahead of a week of trade and diplomacy talks between New Zealand and China. This is Hipkins’ first visit to China as PM and will mark his official introduction to president Xi Jinping (the meeting will happen on Tuesday). There’s plenty of thorny issues to discuss, with growing concerns among Western leaders in 2022 over China’s “assertive” (Jacinda Ardern’s descriptor) moves in the Pacific, including the signing of a contentious security pact with the Solomon Islands and a wide-reaching proposal to nearly a dozen Pacific countries covering a range of areas including policing, security and data communication cooperation.
But Hipkins has presented this trip as being, first and foremost, a trade endeavour. “There’s not much more bread and butter than trade for a country like New Zealand,” he told media last week. With China being our largest trading partner by a long way, and post-Covid moves towards a more localised economy there, Henare, O’Connor and the 29 delegates will be working hard to expand New Zealand’s offering to China’s billion consumers.
On the diplomacy front, there is debate to be had over New Zealand’s reliance on China as a trading partner while China’s politics – particularly the mass internment of Uyghur people and close ties with Russia – so conflicts with our historical national stances on human rights issues. Last week, Hipkins said he didn’t think Xi Jinping was a dictator – a predictable answer for a close trading partner and imminent visitor. Whether or not Hipkins will dare venture into those areas during his bilateral meeting with Xi is hard to say, but he’d be wise to sweat over every word he utters to Chinese officials.
He’ll also be literally sweating. Hipkins’ trip coincides with a Beijing heatwave. Last week, the capital city recorded its hottest June day in 60 years, with temperatures reaching 40 degrees celsius. After a 22-hour journey on the defence force plane, Hipkins was greeted in Beijing by a late-night ceremonial guard, as New Zealand and China flags hung in the warm air. Today he visits the local embassy and attends one of many business-focused events selling Aotearoa to China. Tomorrow, it’s the main event, where media and officials here in Beijing will be keeping a close eye on how Hipkins is received by Xi.
The first meeting with a powerful and volatile trading partner? A full week of opportunity to say something that local media tears to shreds? Three months out from an election and 40 degree heat? The ceremonial handshakes will be clammy for all sorts of reasons.
Madeleine Chapman is in China this week reporting on Hipkins’ trip.
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