The New Zealand flag flies in front of The Beehive, the executive building within New Zealand's Parliament Buildings complex in Wellington on May 14, 2020. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
New Zealand may be a small country by any measure—just more than 5 million people and roughly 100,000 square miles of land—but its unique identities have made it one of China’s key targets in what Beijing calls “periphery diplomacy,” the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) diplomatic strategy of infiltrating and partnering with neighboring countries to strengthen its geopolitical standing.
An Advanced Western Economy
China has used New Zealand—an advanced Western economy—as a convenient gateway into the Western economic system. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce touts four “firsts” with New Zealand: the first country to finish WTO bilateral negotiations with China, the first to recognize China as a full market economy, the first to enter bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with China, and the first to sign and implement a free trade agreement.
Wang He has master’s degrees in law and history, and has studied the international communist movement. He was a university lecturer and an executive of a large private firm in China. Wang now lives in North America and has published commentaries on China’s current affairs and politics since 2017.
