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Reflecting on her five years as New Zealand’s leader, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said China has undoubtedly become more assertive in the region over that time, but cautioned that building relationships with small Pacific nations shouldn’t become a game of one-upmanship.
In a joint interview Thursday with The Associated Press and the Australian Associated Press, Ardern said China has changed in recent years under President Xi Jinping.
I think if I stand back and look at the region as a whole and some of the changes that we’ve seen within our region, you do see a more assertive China, Ardern said.
And look, there’ll be a whole host of reasons for that. Their integration into the regional economy, the growth of China, the growth of its middle class, a whole range of reasons, she said. But you have also seen a more assertive approach on a number of different issues and relationships. So that undoubtedly has changed over my time in office.
China this year made some bold geopolitical moves in the Pacific, first by signing a security pact with the Solomon Islands and then attempting without success to get 10 Pacific nations to sign a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries.
Those moves have deeply worried some Pacific nations and Western democracies including the United States. But Ardern rejected criticism that New Zealand didn’t make its presence felt enough this year as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi toured Pacific nations courting influence.
I think if you take a measure of a relationship as solely being: When was the last time you had a politician visit? That is not the measure of a relationship, Ardern said.
