New Zealand’s trade minister has phoned his Australian counterpart in an attempt to ease cross-Tasman tensions after he suggested Canberra should “show respect” and act more diplomatically towards China.
The NZ minister, Damien O’Connor, had irritated some members of the Australian government with remarks he made in a television interview on Wednesday when asked about his country’s offer to mediate between Canberra and Beijing.
After signing an upgraded free trade agreement with China, O’Connor said NZ had a “mature” relationship with Beijing and had “always been able to raise issues of concern”.
“I can’t speak for Australia and the way it runs its diplomatic relationships but clearly if they were to follow us and show respect, I guess a little more diplomacy from time to time, and be cautious with wording then they, too, hopefully could be in a similar situation,” O’Connor told CNBC on Wednesday.
O’Connor attempted to tidy up the comments with a call to the new Australian trade minister, Dan Tehan, on Thursday.
“The Australia-China relationship will always be a matter for China and Australia,” O’Connor said in a statement provided to NZ news site Stuff.
“I’ve spoken with my Australian counterpart earlier today to reiterate, as I said in the interview, that we do not speak for Australia on this or any other matter.”
The saga coincides with Chinese state media calling on Australia to follow New Zealand’s lead in how it deals with Beijing rather than being “filled with hostility toward China’s rise” and making “wrong judgments”.
In a brief statement late on Thursday, Tehan said Australia’s relationship with China was “based on an assessment of our national interests”. He said the government’s approach to trade policy would be guided by “proactivity, principle and patience”.
Tehan said Australia was always open to dialogue with China “as the best way to resolve differences”.
While relations remain frozen after Beijing objected to the Morrison government’s call for a Covid-19 inquiry and took a series of trade actions against Australian export sectors, China and New Zealand agreed this week to upgrade their existing free trade agreement.
The deal includes a promise from China to achieve faster customs clearance of perishable goods such as seafood, and provide increased access for New Zealand wood – two of the areas in which Australian exporters have suffered disruptions since tensions erupted last year.
In late October Australian exporters reported that about 20 tonnes of live lobster had died because of extended delays on the tarmac, for what Chinese authorities said was related to extra health-related testing. China suspended imports of Australian timber late last year because of pest concerns.
In an apparent attempt to drive a wedge between Australia and New Zealand – both of which are members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – China’s foreign ministry praised the NZ prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, for her remarks about the importance of trade with China.
The foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said China and New Zealand had a “sound basis” to proceed with the healthy and stable development of their relationship.
By contrast, according to a new article carried by Chinese state media, the Australian government had displayed “a re-energised Cold War mentality” and added to diplomatic tensions through a series of actions including hyping up the notion of China being a threat and passing laws against foreign interference in 2018.
The op-ed in the Global Times said Australia and New Zealand were “very much alike in many ways” but that “Wellington doesn’t take sides between Beijing and Washington” while “Australia acted as an anti-China vanguard for the US” under the former Trump administration.
“New Zealand has set an example for Australia in how to deal with China,” wrote Qin Sheng, an executive research fellow at the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“If Australian leaders cannot make correct judgments about China’s strategy and consider China-Australia relations from the perspective of mutual benefits and win-win results, it will be of no help regardless of how many China experts they consult with.”
Dr Jeffrey Wilson, a trade expert who is the research director of the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia, was unimpressed with O’Connor’s comments.
“By echoing comments made in the Global Times, the New Zealand trade minister is deliberately criticising Australia to play to a Chinese audience,” Wilson said.
Wilson said the signing of the upgraded free trade agreement was “a bad look” at the current time, because it “puts China in a position where it can play one side off against the other”.
Wilson noted Tuesday’s signing came just two weeks after New Zealand did not join the other Five Eyes nations – Australia, the UK, the US and Canada – in issuing a joint statement condemning the mass arrests of 55 pro-democracy politicians and activists in Hong Kong for subversion under the national security law imposed by China.
NZ sometimes issues its own statements on China rather than signing up to joint Five Eyes releases, and Ardern criticised an “unfactual” tweet by a Chinese foreign ministry official about Australian soldiers in December.
More broadly, Wilson said Australia and New Zealand had long competed with each other on trade to China, because there was overlap in many of the exported products, such as beef, lamb, wool, high-value dairy goods and timber.
He said Australia’s own free trade agreement with China in 2015 was partly aimed at levelling the playing field after New Zealand struck one with Beijing in 2008.
New Zealand then began negotiations to upgrade its free trade agreement in 2016, with those talks reaching a conclusion in October 2019.
Wilson said there was a tentative sign of “de-escalation” after the flurry of actions last year, with China’s commerce ministry announcing this week that it would increase quotas for imports of reduced-tariff Australian beef and sugar, as scheduled in the China-Australia free trade agreement.
“It’s not removing sanctions – it is declining to add new ones when an opportunity to do so presents itself,” he said.
Despite the tensions, total Australian exports to China in December increased by $2.3bn (21%) compared with November, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Monday. This increase was mostly because of an increase in the quantity and price of iron ore exports.