Beijing to club Tasman unity with ‘wedge’

China is expected to continue its Tasman ‘wedge tactic’ despite Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern’s effort to present unity in their dealings with Xi Jinping’s prickly regime.

Scott Morrison and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Queenstown on Monday. Picture: AFP

China is expected to continue its “wedge tactic”, despite Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern’s effort to present Tasman unity in their dealings with Xi Jinping’s prickly regime.

Beijing lashed out at the two prime ministers for making ­“irresponsible remarks” after they outlined their broad alignment on China policy at a leaders’ meeting in Queenstown.

“China firmly opposes this,” said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin in Beijing’s first official response, after scolding the pair for their comments on Hong Kong, Xinjian and the South China Sea.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman also warned Ms Ardern and Mr Morrison about “targeting or damaging the interests of third parties” and “forming enclosed small cliques with ideology as the yardstick”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. Picture: AFP

The annual Australia-New Zealand prime ministers’ meeting followed months of media debate about how the two countries were handling their relations with the rising power.

Speaking after the meeting, the two leaders pushed back on reports of a split on China policy.

“At no point in our discussions did I detect any difference in our relative positions on the importance of maintaining a very strong and principled perspective on issues around trade, around human rights,” said Ms Ardern.

Mr Morrison said while there were “those far from here who would seek to divide us … they will not succeed.”

Foreign policy experts on both sides of the Tasman said many of the differences on China had been exaggerated.

“There was a gap before the visit — but that gap was somewhat smaller, I think, than some commentary sometimes suggests,” said Richard Maude, who oversaw the Australian government’s 2017 foreign policy white paper.

Mr Maude, now executive director of policy at the Asia Society Australia, said despite the show of Tasman unity, Beijing would likely stick to its “wedge tactic … It suits China to play out perceptions of division between countries that are pushing back against (it).”

Australians also needed to recognise New Zealand had to make its own decisions about how best to manage its national interest. “If we want them to be as aligned as possible, the best thing we can do is work constructively with them, not lecture them.”

The joint statement on Monday included concerns about China’s economic coercion, interference in other countries’ political systems and undermining of Indo-Pacific sovereignty.

David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Wellington’s Victoria University, said the joint statement revealed some changes in the Ardern government’s positioning after months of intense debate.

“I think you would have to conclude there has been some movement on the part of New Zealand,” he said. “There’s more of the language of a ‘free and open Pacific’ than we’ve seen from New Zealand governments in the past.”

He said the meeting demonstrated both prime ministers understood they had nothing to gain by playing up differences on China. “Those public differences only benefit Beijing. There was a deliberate attempt to show there really wasn’t a crack of light between Australia and New Zealand on this,” he said.

“That was probably a ­little overdone. At the same time, the differences were never as big as some sections of the Australian media and elsewhere would have had people believe.”

Denunciations of Australian foreign and domestic policy have become routine at Beijing’s daily press briefings in the last year.

Criticism of New Zealand is rarer, with China presenting it as a model US ally whose example Australia should follow.

Ning Tuanhui, an assistant research fellow at the foreign ministry-run research centre China Institute of International Studies, downplayed the meeting’s significance.

“In the 51-point joint statement, only several items are related to China,” he wrote in the nationalist tabloid Global Times.

“Australia has been irrational in its handling of relations with China … New Zealand is much more rational,” he said.