Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, center, alongside New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, left, and New Zealand Governor-General Dame Cyndi Kiro at the official welcome ceremony in Wellington, England New Zealand, Thursday June 13, 2024. Li arrived in New Zealand at the start of a week-long tour that also includes Australia and Malaysia. (Mark Mitchell/NZ Herald via AP) (Uncredited/NZ Herald)
WELLINGTON, New Zealand Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in New Zealand on Thursday, beginning a rare visit to its closest partner among Western democracies, where celebration of trade ties is expected to rival concerns over Pacific security South on Wellington's agenda.
Li, China's second official, is the first Chinese prime minister to visit New Zealand since Li Keqiang's visit in 2017. He will also visit Australia and Malaysia, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said this week. This trip coincides with the easing of tensions between Australia and China which have upset relations in recent years.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is expected to welcome trade ties with China in public statements this week. China is the South Pacific nations' largest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth NZ$36 billion ($22 billion). They signed a bilateral free trade agreement in 2008, China's first with an Organization for Cooperation and Development country and this visit marks the 10th anniversary of a commitment to strengthen relations signed in 2014 during Chinese President Xi Jinping's latest visit to Wellington.
But while Luxon hailed the visit in remarks to reporters Monday as presenting new opportunities for business, Wellington has long sought to diversify the country's export market away from reliance on China and the visit will not be a simple story of economic success as engagements with the New Zealand leaders have sometimes been before.
As China and the United States vie for influence in the Pacific, Luxon spoke ahead of a tour to Niue and Fiji this month, amid increasingly choppy geostrategic waters for the region, although he did not mention China, except as one of the countries vying for influence in the Pacific. to balance.
In recent years, New Zealand has taken a less assertive line towards Beijing on security issues than its Western partners in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership and has sought a coherent foreign policy approach to Beijing that embraces political parties and administrations. But Luxon told reporters on Monday that there were areas where, in discussions with Li, Wellington would call out our differences and also discuss them openly.
A sticking point is probably New Zealand's thinking to join a tranche of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the United States and Britain.
We believe AUKUS is good from a security perspective, as it provides security in the Indo-Pacific region, Luxon said, considering it appropriate for New Zealand to explore its options under the agreement before to decide to participate.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hit out at New Zealand and Australia's security concerns in meetings with his New Zealand counterpart during a visit to Wellington in March.
They are real, Luxon said of regional threats.
More than 100 people waved Chinese and New Zealand banners and flags on Thursday as they lined a side street near the airport in cold, overcast conditions to watch the arrival of the Lis Air China flight, a spectacle unusual in the capital, Wellington, which has a population of 215,000. is absent from many international air routes.
The normally sleepy seaside suburb of Lyall Bay had a heightened presence of law enforcement officers. As Li's motorcade filed out of the airport, drums, chants and chants from the congregation greeted the leader, prompting questions from perplexed vendors arriving to open stores nearby.
Li will visit the Australian capital on Saturday, where relations between China and Beijing have not been as smooth in recent years.
His visit to Canberra caps two years of efforts to rebuild Sino-Australian relations after a period of intense hostility and celebrates what both sides hope will be a lasting return to normalcy in their relations, despite their differences over regional security and human rights.
His visit, the first by a Chinese prime minister in seven years, follows Albanian's trip to Beijing last November and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's trip to Australia and New Zealand in March. China gradually reduced tariffs and other restrictions it imposed on imports from Australia as relations deteriorated in 2020.
China opposes Australia's plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the United States and the United Kingdom, which it sees as part of American efforts to contain China by deepening military ties with other countries in the region.
But with Australia unlikely to address this issue, Li will likely focus on overcoming differences and deepening economic ties. Australia, which runs a trade surplus with China, is a major supplier of iron ore and other minerals to the world's second-largest economy.
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Associated Press journalist Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.
