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Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta is describing a meeting in March with her Chinese counterpart Qin Gang as robust.
Ahead of this week’s meeting in Beijing between Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and President Xi Jinping, the Australian newspaper reported Ms Mahuta has been harangued for an hour in what’s described as Wolf Warrior diplomacy.
It was the first ministerial meeting since former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed concern that a Chinese military base in the Pacific would “fundamentally alter the strategic balance of the region”.
Ms Mahuta says she didn’t take a backwards step.
“It was a robust conversation, there is no doubt about that. We discussed fully the range of issues that New Zealand wanted to put onto the table and similarly China put forward their issues in a robust way. We certainly made very clear the issues which were of most concern to New Zealand. We discussed Russia in Ukraine. We discussed South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, certainly a number of issues I have consistently expressed,” Minister Mahuta says.
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