'China's vision of its future is not as a new overlord'
Zichen Wang of the Center for China and Globalization, speaking today in Wellington.
Photo:
RNZ / Phil Pennington
China is not interested in becoming "a new overlord", a researcher at a Beijing thinktank has told a conference in Wellington.
Christopher Luxon has travelled to China in
his first trip as prime minister
, where he will meet China's top three leaders, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.
Zichen Wang - from the Center for China and Globalization - told the Institute of International Affairs conference in Wellington on Tuesday the sheer size of China has led to Washington being worried, but Beijing's foreign policy was focused ono preventing conflicts.
"Many people worry about a stronger China will inevitable seek hegemony.
"But Beijing has made it clear - and I think most Chinese... agree - that China's vision of its future is not as a new overlord."
Luxon's trip to China was a "great start," Wang told the conference.
He added that while officials in the Trump administration were hawkish on China, the US president himself did not appear to be ideologically driven.
A New Zealand-based researcher said more Chinese researchers and policymakers had begun asking about New Zealand's strategic posture.
Dr Jason Young of the NZ Contemporary China Research Centre told the institute's conference that on his trip to China last week he saw a "noticeable shift" in how New Zealand was being talked about.
This focused on the bilateral ties and "what does New Zealand want?", he said.
But the Chinese he talked to also had a strategic question.
"I think there's what I would consider a very unrealistic expectation in China for New Zealand to have more strategic clarity and strategic autonomy in what has become a very open, contested relationship between the United States and China," said Young.
The rationalisation he heard was the China was a great power and a "global good", so it was natural that its economic growth would extend into providing security.
China would also reciprocate when it came to military activity by other countries that got close to its territory.
The Chinese navy taskforce in the Tasman Sea in February "really reflects a new reality for New Zealand", Young said.
The live exercises dominated NZ-China talks earlier in the year.
That had fed into a "quite distressing" shift up in threat perception of New Zealanders towards China, Young said.
A newly-released survey by the Asia New Zealand Foundation - carried out in March - found China was considered both a 'friend' and a 'threat', with "recent events causing a spike in threat perception".
The question was would this be a trend or a blip, Young said.
The US was now perceived as less of a friend than a year ago.
"Trust in the US to act responsibly was at an all-time low,
the survey found
.
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