BEIJING (Reuters) – New Zealand’s foreign minister said he had raised concerns over China’s recent live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea during meetings with Chinese leaders on Wednesday.
The issue was a lack of notice given to New Zealand over the military exercises off its coast, Winston Peters told reporters in Beijing after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
“This is a failure in (our special relationship) at this time, and we’d like to have it corrected into the future,” he said.
Peters is in Beijing for a three-day visit after relations between the two countries became strained over the drills.
New Zealand and Australian officials said that China had conducted live-fire exercises in international waters between the two nations, giving little notice and forcing commercial airlines to divert flights.
The three Chinese ships were south of Tasmania in Australia’s exclusive economic zone and were now moving west, the New Zealand Defence Force said Wednesday.
Peters said he also raised China’s missile launch test last September that landed near French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone, of which “most Pacific Island nations got no warning at all” and New Zealand got “little warning.”
“The Chinese were considering the issue of providing earlier notice for future naval drills,” he said.
Peters will also visit Mongolia and South Korea.
(Reporting by Laurie Chen; Writing by Shi Bu and Ethan Wang; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Ros Russell)
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