Former prime minister John Key secured a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week without the involvement of ANZ, the National Party or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT).
ANZ confirmed Key, who chairs its New Zealand board, visited China in a “personal capacity”.
According to the Chinese news organisation, Xinhua, Xi told Key that the world was changing and China was becoming even more willing to cooperate with other countries.
It reported: “China sticks to the path of peaceful development, said Xi, adding that China's door "will be open even wider to the world.
“Xi said China welcomes all countries and their companies to grasp the opportunity provided by China's development to better realize mutual benefit.
“Speaking highly of Key's active contribution to the China-New Zealand relations in his capacity as prime minister, Xi said he hopes that Key can continue to help enhance the friendship between the two peoples.”
Meanwhile Key reportedly told Xi that he’d continue to play an active role in promoting the understanding and cooperation between the two countries.
The Mandarin version of the article said Key also praised Xi for his vision and leadership and said he believed the Belt and Road Initiative would succeed.
Key couldn’t be reached to verify these comments and talk about the trip more generally.
National knew, Bridges didn’t?
While the National Party was aware of Key’s visit and the meeting with Xi on October 16, Leader Simon Bridges said he wasn’t.
The Party said it had no involvement organising the meeting and didn’t provide Key with any funding.
Bridges last month surprised China observers, meeting with one of the most powerful people in the Communist Party - Guo Shengkun - and then seemingly singing very loudly off the Chinese songbook during an interview with Chinese media.
Guo is one of 25 people with a seat on the Central Politburo, which oversees the Party. He is also the Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which oversees all of China’s legal enforcement authorities.
Bridges was accompanied by National MPs Gerry Brownlee and Jian Yang, who had taught English to Chinese students so they could monitor communications and collect information.
Improved diplomatic relations
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in April met Xi and Premier Li Keqiang during a visit to Beijing.
The leaders agreed to hold the seventh round of negotiations to upgrade the 2008 NZ-China Free Trade Agreement.
The visit also saw a double tax agreement between the two countries updated, “memorandums of arrangement” on “financial dialogue” and “science and research cooperation” signed, and a “Strategic Plan on Promoting Agricultural Cooperation” formulated.
Later in the month, Trade Minister David Parker led a business delegation to a Belt and Road forum in Beijing.
All these meetings followed a period of frostiness from China.
Ardern had to put a visit planned for the end of 2018 on hold due to “scheduling issues” on China’s part.
Then the opening of the China-New Zealand Year of Tourism, scheduled for February 2019, was shelved for a month.
Friction stemmed from New Zealand's external spy agency blocking China's Huawei from building a 5G network, partly due to concerns over spying and the company's proximity to the Chinese Government.
Labour MP: ‘National is at Masters’ level and other parties are still doing 101’
The diplomatic ground the Coalition Government appears to have regained hasn’t impressed Chinese-born Labour MP, Raymond Huo, who on Thursday made a LinkedIn post praising Key and National.
“Key’s visit, as usual, has created huge positive vibe in the Chinese community here in NZ,” he said.
“And according to the community, his former National Party is the only political party in NZ that understands China (as a country) and Chinese community (as a voting bloc).
“It is a fair comment that National is at Masters’ level and other parties are still doing 101, willingly or otherwise…
“Key has been a master in understanding the Chinese notion of “Guanxi”…
“If you have good Guanxi you are more likely to have face and therefore command more respect (and votes).
“That’s why the Chinese constituents got motivated by Key’s visit: my friends who are National supporters sent me the story to declare “here we are!” Labour supporters got worried and sent me the story asking “where are you?” [I am a small potato, bro!].”
Huo’s comments drew criticism from University of Canterbury professor and China researcher, Anne-Marie Brady, who tweeted:
Labour list MP, Raymond Huo praising rival National's management of NZ "Chinese community" [sic] reminds me of John Hong's statement that he wants to be *either* a Labour or National MP.
— Professor Anne-Marie Brady (@Anne_MarieBrady) October 17, 2019
The 2 parties are tribal, you can't be aligned with both-unless your goal is getting in power
73 Comments
On the face of it, no actual transgression of any sort or form , a financial big wig, sort of, with a dictator, why not? But on the face of our former PM everything you need to see, as to why the good people of NZ turned away from and rejected that National government. You see big corporate business counts for everything and the ordinary man, or woman, on the street counts for nothing. That too is firmly etched on the face on the other side of the handshake. Birds of the feather flock together!
Yes it still fascinates me how blatant that NZ flag rebranding scam was, to change our flag and remove any sense of our history. All to make NZ more palatable for resale to overseas buyers. Honestly did Mr Key really think that NZ citizens were such sheep! I'm very glad he didn't get away with it.
As I have written before John Key (sorry, Sir John Key) is very good at self-promotion. I first met him in 1988, (when he was an upcoming dealer at Elder Finance, asking me for an extension to their credit lines) and if there's one thing he's good at, it's recognising where the next rung on the ladder is. I always imagined he'd be after SG of the United Nations, but given that Helen has queered that pitch, what better place is there than a representative of the CCP?!
hope we dont go down the road of sri lanka, would not put it past JK not to try to sell Fonterra to the chinese
China are starting to do some scary things, lease a whole island off the top of Australia, nuclear sub popping up, turning atols into bases, taking over a port in sri lanka
they are always on the look out for weak countries to take control over or influence
and the tie up with national does not past the sniff test
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/australia/china-tulagi-solomon…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12277…
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lanka-port.html
Yep if you get a chance to read Magic Weapons by Prof Anne Marie Brady (the professor who had her research burgled and targeted by China} it goes into detail on a lot of the above! Scary stuff.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/magic-weapons-chinas-political-inf…
The Chinese are sensing that National has a chance to come back to power and are positioning for an influential place, by cultivating Key again. They may even help National with funds etc. Key is seen to be a key person in deciding the next PM. Could that be Key himself ?
Such blatant political moves by National, though they would claim that the party had nothing to do with this meet. And the Chinese community here galvanised by this. Now watch the money pour in overtly and covertly. JA and WP are novices against this seasoned pollies who always have the businessmen and overseas interests backing them, whether in or out of power. Obama was a minnow compared to Key, when it comes to the long game, which the Chinese like, btw .
Well, Labour pulled out the Chinese Sounding Name card and pissed off Chinese voters (not just new migrants but also a lot of second or even third generation Kiwi Chinese). Who are you going to put the money on in such case? Ironically, Chinese Sounding Names could be the only thing Labour got right in past few years. LOL
... but did Labour get it right ? .. . is it possible that some Chinese folks don't have particularly " Chinese sounding "names ... or that some people at house auctions who do have " Chinese sounding " names are not new immigrants at all ...
Given that Phil " the brain " Twyford came up with this knock out logic ... you can understand why we desperately need immigrants to increase the nation's ability to think cogently ...
China, having been culturally isolated for so long, have not really seen their "surnames" changed much, and there is not that a great many of them in the first place, so, say, if you see the name Li, it is likely to be Chinese, whereas if you see the name Lee it could be English or Korean, but not Chinese. They weren't Chinese "sounding" names, they were actual Chinese names
Key and the National government are simply willing pawns in Chinese Barbarian state management process. It is their responsibility to offer up the Barbarian state (NZ) to the interests of China. They are extremely well rewarded for this, but they are totally subservient to Chinese interests. In some countries this process extends to heads of major corporate and financial interests and more broadly the Darvos group. One of the major thrusts of the Chinese approach to dealing with Trump has been to concentrate pressure on corporate USA to bring the political process back under control and passive toward China as it was previously. I am no great supporter of Trump, but this is a different matter entirely.
Apart from one obviously Chinese puppet in the Labour party, influence not so noticeable. I would not be surprised if there is more than we can see. I wonder if they have any influence inside Fonterra
If he is there in a personal capacity why the photo opportunity and the press ?
Lets be clear, he is meddling in NZ politics whilst being employed by an Australian bank.
He seems like nothing more than an egotistical and arrogant self interested individual.
Perhaps he needs reminding it was NZers who entrusted him to be their PM. We really don't need him selling himself or the country out for his few pieces of silver.
... not sure how he is " meddling in NZ politics " by meeting Ginsling ... and not too bothered anyway ... Helen Clark has plenty of input , helping her former Labour Party colleagues.... or harranguing them ...
Surely experienced ex politicians still have something positive to add to the debate of the day ?
"Bridges was accompanied by National MPs Gerry Brownlee and Jian Yang, who had taught English to Chinese students so they could monitor communications and collect information."
Taught English to Students lol....seriously, weren't they military officers and deep cover agents taught at the school?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/13/china-born-new-zealand-mp…
"The newspaper said the school specialised in training both “openly acknowledged military intelligence officers and ‘secret line’ deep cover agents”.
'Why Is John Key Running Around Trying to Organise a New Political Party' ?
https://thebfd.co.nz/2019/10/why-is-john-key-running-around-trying-to-o…
Is the Cat out of the Bag ?
Could it be that a new NZ political party catering to the Chinese is in the planning stages - wouldn’t take much of a pitch, run ex mainland China, through the various NZ Chinese media to convince a bloc to vote for that party and pull 5% plus of the party vote. Then “National no mates” would have a chance at the next election.
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