Don Brash: Former National Leader voices concern over Winston Peters' approach to China

Winston Peters is accusing Don Brash and Helen Clark of "relevance deprivation syndrome", after their criticism of his approach to China. 

The former National and Labour leaders are warning the Government that it could be putting our largest trading relationship at risk by aligning too closely with the US. 

Brash believes that it is unwise to shift priority from China to the US given the current tension between the two superpowers.

Peters says he stands by the government's independent foreign policy, and he sees no value in indulging in tired arguments from former politicians. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pressure this morning on the Prime Minister to separate New
Zealand's foreign policy from that of America's. A cross party
coalition of prominent leaders have signed an open leader urging
the Prime Minister to not take an adversarial stance towards China.
List of figures include Helen Clarks, Jeffrey Palmers to David Carter,
and Don Brash, former National Party leader of course and

(00:20):
Reserve Bank governor. Who's with me this morning?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Don?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good morning, Good morning, right, Good to have you on program.
So this is a position I know you've had for
a while, but what exactly is the government doing to
get what are we doing to get too close to
America and further from China.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Well, a number of things that have been done in
the last twelve eighty months, I guess the most obvious thing.
We sailed one of our naval ships through the Taiwan
Straits straight. We've long regarded Taiwan as part of China.
Standing naval ships through that strait is very offensive to China.
And we know that We've recently signed a special kind

(00:57):
of military relationship with the Philippines, despite the fact they
are a low level confrontation with China. We've done all
kinds of We sent two delegations to Taiwan, led by
National Party MPs, knowing that that offends China, and they've
met with the President of China of Taiwan. I mean,

(01:17):
we go out of our way to offend China. Judith Colins,
Minister of Defense, has made a number of speeches in
which you clearly implied that China was a military threat
to New Zealand and we should ally ourselves with the
United States to prevent that.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Now are they not? I mean, you know, of.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Course they're not. I mean, in what sense are they
a threat to New Zealand with no sense.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
That when push comes to shove and one day when
they either quarantine or blockade Taiwan, what do we do?
Who sided? You know, what side do we take?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Now? It's not about business. We regard Taiwan as part
of China, and we were out of that since nineteen
seventy two. It's not our business at all. The United
States if they want a military confrontation with China, so
be it. I hope they don't have such a confrontation.
It's not good for either country. We want to attain
a good relationship with both the United States and China.

(02:11):
But we can't do that if the United States is
held bent on a military confrontation with China.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
What about Aucust You've obviously got concerns about August. What
exactly are they?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
What Aucus is as it stands in its pure form,
a nuclear submarine deal, where by Australia will require nuclear
subs from the United States at enormous costs some three
hundred and seventy billion Australian dollars. Most experts say Australia
will never actually get those submarines for a variety of
technic inquitions they won't boy you with. But it's deliberately

(02:42):
and explicitly an anti China military relationship. Well, if Australia
wants to do that, that's Australia's fair, but it should
not be ours.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
What about that We've just yesterday a lot of our
troops have gone on Canterbury off to a military exercise
with the US and with the Australians. Those drills rile China.
Do you think we should be not engaging with them
minither Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Why would we do that?

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Well, we need to he otherwise they're doing nothing. You
know what would the what would the doing what?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
I don't know what they'll be doing, but in any case,
what why take better and exercise which is explicitly aimed
against China, which is lotaly not thrittening US. It's our
largest export market by a country mile. I mean, it's
it's daft in every dimension.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Don I appreciate you coming on the program. Don brash Form,
the national party leader, very much encouraging Luxon to move
away from America or at least be a disinterested party
in that battle between the States and China.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
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