Recognising the People's Republic of China: Jason Young suggests the need to build New Zealand-inflected expertise on China, to recognise the challenges of responding to the People's Republic and its changing place in the world.

• Author: Young, Jason

On 22 December 1972, Norman Kirk and his newly elected Labour government established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). (1) New Zealand recognition came just a day after Australia's but some 23 years after the establishment of the PRC in October 1949. It followed soon after the United Nations General Assembly adoption of Resolution 2758 in October 1971, which granted the PRC a seat in the United Nations and expelled the Taiwan-based Republic of China (ROC). President Nixon's historic visit to Beijing in early 1972 to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai played no small part in these significant shifts in a period known as the 'week that changed the world'.

Recognition of the PRC meant severing diplomatic relations with the ROC. It meant putting aside a longstanding position to recognise both governments, (2) and necessitated the establishment of mechanisms to manage 'economic and cultural relations' with Taiwan. The switch introduced the phrase 'one-China policy' into New Zealand's diplomatic vernacular and a whole new set of considerations still grappled with today. As Chinese politics and international relations have ebbed and flowed over the decades, so, too, has what has been possible in the relationship. There have been periods of exuberant activity, such as from 2008 to 2012, along with periods of major disruption, for example following the suppression of protests on 4 June 1989. The PRC has become one of New Zealand's most consequential, complex and challenging diplomatic relationships, while relations with Taiwan are now defined as 'a vibrant trading, economic and cultural relationship'. (3)

In the recently published Encountering China: New Zealanders and the People's Republic, Chris Elder points to 'an odd symmetry about the beginning and the end of the 50-year period'. (4) Elder was there at the beginning, accompanying Joe Walding on the first ministerial delegation to the People's Republic in March 1973 and was posted that same year to the newly opened embassy in Beijing headed by Ambassador Bryce Harland. Elder himself returned as New Zealand ambassador to China in 1993. His observation about the 'odd symmetry' of then and now points to the on-going complexity of managing relations with the People's Republic.

Three themes

An anniversary is a time to reflect and to look to the future. Wang Xiaolong, the Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, did this by presenting four key words to recapitulate the 50 years: direction (from government), co-operation (mutually beneficial trade), friendship (people-to-people links) and enterprise (New Zealand 'firsts' in China's relations with Western developed countries). (5) An anniversary is also a time for new initiatives, but compared to previous anniversaries this one was notable for its lack of activity. The New Zealand government chose three themes to mark the 50 years: tangata/people, aorangi/planet and tonuitanga/prosperity.

Tangata/people: The first theme focuses on people-to-people links. Since 1972 opportunities for businesspeople, intrepid travellers, students, scholars and artists to interact have greatly expanded. Families and friendships now straddle both countries, changing New Zealand society for the better and providing a strong basis and rationale for relations into the future. Opportunities for meaningful intellectual, creative and sporting engagements remain. In recent years...