Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Prime Minister Luxon pushing for diplomacy and trade during China visit

The Prime Minister is pushing for diplomacy and trade in China  - as he visits with ministers and senior business leaders.

Discussions will be held on boosting education and tourism, including attempting to attract more international students to New Zealand.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan says the Government could look at making visa changes to make it easier on Chinese tourists.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Thomas Coglan is The Herald's political editor with the Prime
Minister in Shanghai. Hi Thomas Hi. Okay, So what's going
on with the Chinese tourists. I've been talking about it.
Why aren't we getting as many as we used to?

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, and it's quite a lot less than we used to.
We're still at about sixty percent of pre COVID levels.
China was and remains a key tourism market for US,
and it is just not the strength of market as
it was pre COVID. One of the big issues that's
been talked about a lot on this trip is visa excess. Now,
if you're a Chinese tourist, you need to apply for

(00:31):
a visa in China, get all your documents and your
visa a new passport, then you come to New Zealand. Now,
obviously New Zealand will be a much more advertising and
appealing prospect. If you could just show up at Auckland
the airport, presuming passport and come and have a nice holiday.
The government you could do this, they could give Chinese
visa pre access to New Zealand, but they don't want to.

(00:52):
On the download appears that is because of concerns about overstaying,
asylum claims, that sort of thing. So we've seen today
transit visa to make it easier for Chinese tourists to
transit through a from the airport. We've seen it the
government making it easier to if you're if you've got
an Australian visa to come to New Zealand on holiday.
But that it looks like that visa free travel is

(01:12):
simply not happening and that does appear to be a
bit of a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
It does appear to be a bit of a problem,
does it.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yes, So we were taking to trip dot com you
be very familiar with. That's a big online booking platforms,
China's biggest, biggest online tourism booking platform. The chief executive
gave the chief chief executive, Jane Sun, gave Christopher Lux
and the tour around their headquarters today and she showed
the Chinese arrivals to New Zealand and what they were doing.

(01:43):
She also she showed lux and that actually Chinese tourists
are a booking booking trips in a hurry, that they're
booking the trip and then they're leaving, and they sugguced
that they are keen to get that visa free access,
but it looks like the government is just not going
to budge on that. They're going to do everything but that.
But they won't do that now.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
We spoke yesterday to a guy called David Man who's
an investment banker based in China. He said that the
Chinese are reasonably irritated by us because we made such
a fuss of India and went to India first and
haven't prioritized them. You got any sense of that while
you're there not yet.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
To be fair, we're probably not if there is a
sense of that, We're not going to get that until
Friday when Christopher Luxin's in Beijing and ther Meat Sesian thing.
So if that, if there is a sense of that,
then then we won't. We won't get that till later. Interestingly,
on the government side, that they are changing the way
they talk about India and China. They're saying China is
a maturer relationship. We've been here for decades, we've had this,
We've got this pretty mature economic relationship between between China

(02:39):
and New Zealand. Now two thousand and eight. That FTA
was a long time ago, so that this was saying
that this is a mature relationship. We're better than we're friends,
and the India relationship is one that is relatively new.
Obviously we've got long standing connections through the British Empire,
but in terms of that economic relationship, we really haven't
got a deep economic relationsip with NDA. So I think

(03:01):
they're trying to say, well, look, different speeds for different relationships.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Okay. Now, obviously the world is watching what's going on
between Israel and around. The Prime Minister to have anything
to say about.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
That, well, yes and no, he was keen to stay
out of this issue. He said that New Zealand was
see piece and stability in the Middle East and we're
a long long way away from that, which is absolutely true.
And he said that New Zealand stands with a number
of other countries and wanting and wanting a peaceful solution
to that conflict there, but one looks like a long

(03:31):
way away.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yep, Thomas, listen, thank you very much, Save travels. It's
Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editor. For more from Hither
duplessy Alan Drive listen live to news talks. It'd be
from four pm weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,