TLDR: Here comes the backlash. The surprisingly aggressive joint statement Jacinda Ardern signed with Joe Biden in Washington this week is coming home to roost atop Aotearoa-NZ’s core strategic vulnerability: our reliance on trade with China.
In the last 48 hours China’s officials have attacked what they saw as a strengthening of our military ties with the United States and a ramping up of joint anti-China rhetoric in the strong joint statement, which has received little coverage here. China’s Chief Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Zhao Lijian, described the joint statement as a ‘distortion and smear’ of China’s motives in the Pacific, while China’s Ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, warned business leaders that we should not take our strong trading relations with China for granted.
See more of my detail and analysis below the paywall fold on this week’s back and forth, including that under-covered joint Biden-Ardern statement.
Elsewhere in the news this morning:
The NZ Herald-$$$ leads its front page this morning with an Anne Gibson report that Kainga Ora is set to sell up to 70% or 270ha of land to private developers in Auckland to fund house building, rather than use the Crown’s balance sheet;
Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ agreed overnight to accelerate a 0.7% increase in global oil output to offset some of the effect of the European Union’s oil embargo this week on Russian oil; and,
Barfoot and Thompson reported the first house sales numbers for May, including a 12% fall in median prices in Auckland from their peak last year, and that its auction clearance rate had fallen to around 25%.
Paid subscribers should look out later today for email invites to my midday ‘Ask Me Anything’ on the week that was our ‘weekly hoon’ live webinar at 5pm. The link for the zoom webinar is under the fun thing.
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