New Zealand Foreign Minister offers to help negotiate a truce between Australia & China

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, on December 15, said that she could help negotiate a truce between Australia and China. Speaking further, the 50-year-old lawmaker asserted that she believes that there was enough opportunity for the kiwi nation to create a “different environment” and initiate a dialogue between the two. Hostilities between China and Australia have escalated in the past weeks, not only on the political but on the economic front as well.

Read: China Announces Additional Import Taxes On Australian Wine As Tensions Escalate

Mahuta, who was recently appointed for the position, said the high profile Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit scheduled to be hosted next year presented a good opportunity to bring both the parties to the table. She added that at the summit, both the parties could “concede in some areas where they are currently not seeing eye to eye”.  Her remarks came as nine members of Global inter-parliamentary alliance on China penned an open letter urging Foreign Ministers to side with Australia.

Read: China Hikes Taxes On Australian Wine Amid Political Tension

Sino-Australian relations

Sino-Australian relations started deteriorating after  Canberra joined Washington is demanding a probe into Beijing’s handling of COVID-19. Irked by Australia, China then imposed a ban on the import of Barley, beef, and other goods from Australia. In May, China had effectively ended imports of Australian barley by putting tariffs of more than 80% on the crop and accusing Australia of breaching World Trade Organization rules by subsidizing barley production and selling the crop in China at below production costs. Australia dismissed the matter saying that it did not want a trade war with China, its largest trade partner. However, China continued the imposition of bans and haled the import of beef and other items.

Australia also attracted the ire of the Chinese Communist Party after the former issued a statement saying that it categorically rejects all maritime claims by China that are 'inconsistent' with the 1982 UNCLOS. While China claimed rights over the South China sea, Australia rejected it asserting that there was no legal basis behind the claim.

Read: Australia Joins Nations In Rejecting China's South China Sea Claims, Writes To The UN

Read: Chinese Govt May Stop Talking To Australia If Canberra Continues Treating It As A Threat