The usually mild-mannered Chinese Ambassador in Wellington, Wang Xiaolong, came out yesterday all guns blazing at the New Zealand Government’s latest attack on his Government.
There has been a steadily escalating war of words between the two countries, which has been led by Foreign Minister Winston Peters.
What is perplexing is why, given that China is New Zealand’s largest trading partner, its second largest source of tourists and that New Zealand has enjoyed access and influence in Beijing well beyond what its size or geography might admit.
But the inevitable conclusion must be that the 40 years of an independent foreign policy, which at its peak during the Key Government saw New Zealand elected to the Security Council and trusted to take lead positions in several international fora, has now ended.
That means instead of being China’s favoured western country, we are now another of its targets.
“No one should underestimate our resolve and capability to defend our legitimate rights and interests,” Wang’s statement reads.
“We urge the New Zealand side to cease immediately violating China’s interests and return to the path of promoting the development of the bilateral relationship on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit, and resolving disputes through constructive dialogues, with a view to avoiding further damage to the relationship.”
It is the last part of that sentence that is important.
Successive Foreign Ministers have told POLITIK over the years that China is willing to have frank discussions about matters that divide our two countries but that they prefer that those discussions take place in private.
At last year’s New Zealand Economic Forum at the University of Waikato, Key’s Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, said New Zealand needed to be wary of conducting its international relations the way Australia did.
“New Zealand, I think, because of our size and sort of different settings, has got to be more nuanced in the way it behaves,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean that you don’t express your views clearly and strongly to, for example, China, when there is a difference about what’s happening in the South China Sea.
“But I’ve never seen taking a long handle to China in the public arena as a very successful strategy.”
The latest dispute centres on New Zealand’s decision to join 13 other countries and sign a US-led statement backing the Philippines’ claims to disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
The statement marks the 10th anniversary of the landmark ruling of a tribunal set up under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the South China Sea on Sunday, reaffirming that the decision remains legally binding and rejecting China’s sweeping maritime claims based on so-called “historic rights.”
The tribunal ruled there was no legal basis for China to claim “historic rights” to resources within the sea areas falling within the “nine-dash line”.
It determined that none of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands legally qualified as “islands” that could generate a 200-nautical-mile EEZ or continental shelf. Instead, they were classified as “rocks” or low-tide elevations.
China was found to have violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights by interfering with lawful Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, and by unlawfully preventing Philippine crews from fishing at Scarborough Shoal.
In a joint statement marking a decade since the historic ruling, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States reiterated their commitment to “a free and open Indo-Pacific that is peaceful, stable, and rules-based.”
Wang forcibly rejected the UN Tribunal’s ruling.
“If the ‘award’ were to be taken as a standard, many countries’° islands and reefs would be denied the basis for claiming maritime rights and interests,” he said.
“May we ask, have those countries supporting the ‘award’ voluntarily waived the maritime rights and interests deriving from their relevant islands and reefs?
“The continued playing up of the illegal ‘award’ by certain countries is inconsistent with the trend of peace and stability in the region and goes against the aspirations of countries and people in the region for development and prosperity.”
There is a similar standoff much closer to New Zealand.
Both Tonga and Fiji claim ownership of the Minerva reefs, which are about 1500 km northeast of New Zealand between Tonga and Fiji.
Tonga claims the reefs based on historical use and an 1887 royal proclamation, even constructing navigational beacons there. Fiji claims the area is within its registered Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and has occasionally destroyed Tongan navigational beacons.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), features that are submerged at high tide cannot be appropriated or used to claim a 200-nautical-mile EEZ.
International law experts suggest that Minerva might only entitle a nation to a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, if that, leaving no expansive maritime or continental shelf rights to either country.
But the dispute over the South China Sea is as much about politics as international law.
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Brunei, Malaysia and Viet Nam, all of which front the South China Sea, has been trying to develop a consensual statement on the competing claims.
Last year’s ASEAN Summit underscored the enduring limitations of ASEAN’s collective approach to the South China Sea.
Most member states issued cautious statements and avoided directly addressing recent developments, including China’s declaration of a nature reserve at the Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal, its deployment of buoys, and its continued ramming and use of water cannons against Philippine vessels.
As the 2025 chair, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reiterated that disputes should be resolved within ASEAN and warned that the involvement of “outside forces” would only heighten tensions.
While Philippine President Marcos publicly agreed with this, his administration continues to pursue partnerships beyond the bloc to deter further Chinese escalation at sea.
Those partnerships are led by the United States.
Thus, New Zealand had a choice: did it side with ASEAN or the US? Clearly, it sided with the US.
The move appears to be part of an orchestrated effort by New Zealand to strengthen its alliances with countries that are seeking to build up their resistance to China.
The weekend visit of Narendra Modi can also be seen in that light.
Writing on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute website last night, Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan said that amid growing unease about relying on the United States to resist China, Australia and India are keen to see how they can gain strength from each other, much as Japan and Australia are increasingly working together.
“Australia and India are framing new minilateral coalitions to maximise their strategic options,” Rajagopalan said.
“Where the two will land is not entirely certain because of the limitations of their material power, but they stand a better chance if they work in unison with other Asian partners, such as Indonesia and New Zealand.
“Unsurprisingly, these were the other two countries that Modi visited last week.”
Those “mini-lateral” alliances would include the Australia-Fiji “Ocean of Peace” alliance, which Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said New Zealand could be interested in joining.
Given this slowly gathering shift in its strategic position by New Zealand, it might pay to assume that last night’s fiery statement from the Chinese Ambassador may not be his last.
