China has publicly rebuked New Zealand over its backing for a decade-old international ruling that rejected Beijing’s sweeping claims across the South China Sea, warning that Wellington’s stance “seriously undermines” the relationship between the two countries.
The rebuke came after New Zealand joined 13 other governments in a joint statement marking the 10th anniversary of a landmark arbitration award, which found that China’s claims to most of the South China Sea had no basis in international law. Beijing has never accepted the ruling and reacted sharply to seeing it revived.
The statement was issued by Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Philippines, Romania, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States, alongside New Zealand. The governments described the ruling as “final, legally binding, and definitive” and reaffirmed what they called an “unwavering commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific that is peaceful, stable, and rules-based, anchored in international law”.
They said there was no legal basis for China’s “expansive maritime claims”, including those built on “historic rights”, and repeated their “strong opposition” to any destabilising or unilateral actions “including by force or coercion that threaten peace and stability in the region”.
The dispute goes back to July 2016, when a tribunal at The Hague ruled that China had no historical exclusive control over the South China Sea. The case had been brought by the Philippines, and the tribunal found that China’s “nine-dash line”, the loosely drawn boundary Beijing uses to claim roughly 90 percent of the waterway, had no legal standing under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China boycotted the proceedings and has ignored the outcome ever since.
Responding to the anniversary statement, China’s ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, accused “certain countries” of “continued playing up” of the award and said this was inconsistent with peace and stability in the region. He urged those governments to “earnestly respect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, stop stirring up trouble over the South China Sea issue, and cease undermining peace and stability”.
Wang singled out New Zealand for particular criticism. He said New Zealand’s decision to sign “clearly deviates from the understanding reached by our leaders and seriously undermines the foundation of healthy and stable relationship”. While insisting China had “no intention to hurt the interests of New Zealand”, he added a pointed warning.
“However, it takes two to tango,” Wang said. “And no one should underestimate our resolve and capability to defend our legitimate rights and interests. We urge the New Zealand side to cease immediately violating China’s interests and return to the path of promoting the development of the bilateral relationship on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit.”
The Government did not back down. A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealand stood by the joint statement and had no further comment to make. The one-line response signalled that Wellington intends to hold its position even under direct pressure from its largest trading partner.
China remains the destination for a very large share of New Zealand’s exports, which makes any friction over security and maritime law commercially sensitive. Successive governments have tried to hold a careful line, defending international rules and freedom of navigation while avoiding language that would invite economic retaliation. The blunt exchange over the South China Sea shows how narrow that path has become.
The clash also lands at a tense moment in the wider Pacific. Only last week China test-launched a long-range ballistic missile carrying a dummy warhead, which RNZ understands flew over the exclusive economic zones of the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Tuvalu and Kiribati before landing in waters near Tuvalu and Kiribati. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called the test unacceptable.
Peters, who has just returned from Singapore and Japan, has been talking up a firmer regional posture. New Zealand is in exploratory talks with Australia and Fiji about joining the Ocean of Peace Alliance, a new defence arrangement, and Peters has said New Zealand should not be “fazed” if China treats that step as a provocation. “China does what China does if it gets away with it,” he told RNZ, arguing that resistance now could shift Beijing’s behaviour in the long run.
This is not the first time the South China Sea has caused a diplomatic scrape. In 2016, then-defence minister Gerry Brownlee was rebuked at a security forum in Beijing over New Zealand’s support for the arbitration process. A decade on, the same fault line has reopened, with the added weight of missile tests and shifting security alliances across the Pacific.
The exchange sharpens a foreign policy debate that is likely to feature in this year’s general election, as parties set out how far New Zealand should lean into Western security partnerships and how much it should protect its trade relationship with Beijing. If you want to see where the parties stand before you vote, you can use our voting tool to compare their positions.
What do you think? Should New Zealand keep standing firmly behind the South China Sea ruling, even at the risk of angering our biggest trading partner, or is Wellington picking a fight it does not need? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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