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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also went to China last year and raised “the question of [human rights] directly “with President Xi Jinping.
New Zealand has recently been a signatory to several joint statements calling on China for its practices and the Prime Minister highlighted Aotearoa’s stance on the issue at a recent business summit.
“The New Zealand Government takes a position that, as representatives of the New Zealand people, we believe that the public has a direct and resounding interest in the outcome,” he said.
“As you know, this has come to the fore recently around developments such as Hong Kong’s new security law, the situation of the Uighur people in Xinjiang province, and Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization.
“This is important to who we are as New Zealanders.”
Bridges rules out the application of sanctions to China, our largest trading partner with two-way trade worth $ 33.4 billion in 2019.
“Our trade with China is an incredibly good thing for New Zealand, in our interest, and what’s more, we would only be punishing the Chinese people who want and need our high-quality products and services,” he says.
But with China speaking out aggressively against New Zealand suspending its extradition agreement with Hong Kong, should the Kiwis be concerned?
“Those are them voicing their position, and I think given China’s reaction to other countries doing similar things, that was to be expected,” says Bridges.
He believes a balance can be struck, pointing to Australia, where, despite increasing rhetoric about China’s treatment of its people, trade in August between the two nations was 4 percent higher than that. moment last year.
“We want to continue trading with China. In fact, we want to continue the warm relations overall, given our person-to-person contact and our shared history. But there will be these problems, and sadly right now, there are more of them than there have been. there have been at some point, about which we must talk. “
New Zealand also needs to diversify who we trade with and make sure it doesn’t have all of its eggs in one basket, Bridges says. It would continue to work on various free trade agreements (FTAs) that are currently under negotiation, such as with the UK, the EU and the RCEP, if it were in a position to do so.
“That is a very important strategy for New Zealand that I think is bipartisan in nature. Whether Winston Peters, David Parker or myself are dealing with trade and foreign affairs, we would be trying to push those FTAs.
“Our top priority must be an EU FTA. Both for trade and because geopolitically it is important to be there, better integrated with like-minded nations.”
