Judith Collins’ cautious comments over the Government response to state-sponsored cyber attacks by China demonstrate National is still grappling with how to speak about the global superpower, Sam Sachdeva writes
In a week when a good number of government ministers are taking advantage of the parliamentary recess to enjoy an overdue break, any opportunity to seize on the news vacuum could seem a godsend.
But the news that New Zealand, with a number of sizeable world powers, had joined to formally attribute damaging cyber-attacks to China’s Ministry of State Security was hardly a slam dunk for National leader Judith Collins.
Speaking to RNZ’s Morning Report about the news, Collins cautiously offered some support for the Government’s response, while at the same time touting the strength of bilateral economic ties.
"We've got a situation ... China is our major trading partner, it sets the world prices effectively for our dairy products, and our horticultural products – it is incredibly important to us.
"But at the same time we can't just lie down and let cyber attacks occur against our health organisations, government agencies and businesses, and sit there and say nothing and just say 'Well that’s fine, do what you want' - that’s not good enough."
China’s rhetoric and actions had changed in recent years, she said, but so too had those of New Zealand and its Five Eyes partners.
On one point, she was clear: China was “quite likely” to carry out some form of trade retaliation against New Zealand as a result of the Government’s denunciation of the cyber attacks.
At one level, this was all unobjectionable, although – as with similar comments from Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor ahead of a parliamentary motion on Xinjiang – tying a political decision to economic consequences is saying the quiet part out loud, even if it seems a statement of the obvious.
The tone of Collins’ remarks, lacking her usual bombast and certainty, serve as a reminder that it is not only the Government getting to grips with how New Zealand should work with, and speak out against, the Asian superpower.
China 'soul-searching' may stutter
While National has begun to take a stronger line on human rights issues in Xinjiang and elsewhere, it is not that long ago that MP Todd McClay was brushing off the detention of Uyghurs in what he called “vocational training centres”.
In May, the NZ Herald’s Fran O’Sullivan reported National was undergoing “soul-searching” on its approach to China, with trade spokesman Todd Muller and foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee leading the recalibration.
Two months later, any chance Muller had of shaping the party’s foreign policy is gone after his high-profile fracas with Collins over anonymous criticisms of Harete Hipango, while there are whispers that Brownlee himself is now somewhat on the outer with his leader.
There are no other obvious contenders in the caucus to take a lead on China policy.
Tāmaki MP Simon O’Connor has a strong interest and is a New Zealand co-chair for the global Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (alongside Labour’s Louisa Wall), but is probably too hawkish to set a path the party would follow.
Former leader Simon Bridges has also shown some enthusiasm, last month hosting a Diplosphere panel discussion at Parliament on the ramifications of China-Australia tensions for New Zealand – but he is in part at fault for the tricky position Collins and the party find themselves in.
A 2019 visit to China as leader ended with scathing headlines after an ill-advised meeting with the man in charge of the country’s vast security and intelligence apparatus, and an equally questionable sit-down interview with Chinese state media where he raved about the CCP’s role in China’s “amazing story”.
It would be unfair to blame Bridges for the allegedly illegal division of a $100,000 donation by Zhang Yikun to evade the declaration threshold, when it is former MP Jami-Lee Ross (with Zhang and several others) awaiting trial before the High Court.
But his secretly recorded and subsequently released phone call with Ross, in which the pair discussed the value of Chinese candidates versus other ethnicities, fed into the perception that National saw China and its people as a source of money as much as anything else.
It is another former leader, though, who casts a bigger shadow over the party when it comes to China.
John Key’s recent comments about the country, emphasising the hundreds of millions of low-income Chinese who may in future buy Kiwi goods as the country’s economy continues to grow, seems from a different era – and in a sense it is.
Key’s government did not sign the NZ-China FTA, but it was in power as two-way trade more than tripled, helping to shelter New Zealand’s economy from the worst of the GFC.
Human rights concerns were not absent then, with Tibet and the South China Sea among the issues the National government had to traverse in bilateral meetings.
But they have taken on a sharper edge under Xi Jinping, who only held power for half of Key’s eight years as prime minister.
Then there is the matter of whether Key paid close enough attention to concerns about the background of list MP Jian Yang, concerns which reportedly led to former National leader Todd Muller and Jacinda Ardern agreeing in 2020 that Yang and Labour's Raymond Huo should both leave Parliament at that year's election.
Of course, Collins is hardly taking dictation from Key on foreign policy given the tepid nature of their relationship – but her former boss remains immensely popular within the party, and some of its pro-business supporters may be inclined to agree with his view.
Foreign policy rarely wins elections in New Zealand, and nor will Collins’ handling of China be what saves or ends her leadership.
But Great Power rivalry shows every sign of heightening rather than diminishing, thanks to a newly coherent US administration, while scholars like Anne-Marie Brady are placing increased weight on a non-partisan approach to China policy from political parties.
National will need plenty more careful thinking about what it wants to say about China, and how it says it.
