New Zealand’s prime minister made conciliatory remarks towards China, her country’s biggest trading partner, over its diplomatic support for Russia.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that China, her country’s biggest trading partner, should not be regarded by the West as an automatic Russian ally, andto President Vladimir Putin’s government over its invasion of Ukraine.
The Labour Party leader said the global response to the war should not become “democracy versus autocracy” because there was a need to convince non-democracies to join sanctions and other measures taken against Russia.“Let’s not assume that China does not have a role to play in placing pressure in response to what is the loss of territorial integrity,” she said at the Lowy Institute, a foreign affairs think tank in Sydney.Among analysts and diplomats,.
Ms Ardern’s intention was to signal to Pacific nations, before a meeting of regional leaders in Fiji next week, that its foreign policy towards China is independent of Australia’s, according to Geoffrey Miller, an analyst at the Democracy Project at the Victoria University of Wellington., on China and New Zealand foreign policy in general,” he said. “She is using all these code words that China will like. That will go down well with Beijing.
But she said “China has quite long-standing relationships with the Pacific too” and the Solomons had a sovereign right to strike agreements with other countries.on Friday as part of the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum, which is usually held about every 18 months, but last took place in 2019 in Auckland.
Among those who attended the Lowy Institute speech were former Defence chief Angus Houston and former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson.
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