Luxon goes to APEC in Shenzhen as NZ awaits election result

Luxon’s office has confirmed  today that the caretaker Prime Minister and Trade Minister Todd McClay will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) Leaders Summit in Shenzhen .

The trip comes with the November 7 election still unresolved. Luxon has said his coalition has a path back to office but conceded the vote was too close to call, and that he will run a caretaker government until final vote tallies are released on November 27. That final count includes nearly 400,000 special votes, among them about 100,000 cast overseas or outside voters’ home electorates.

“The meeting provides an opportunity to advocate for practical steps that make trade easier and less costly,” Luxon said.

APEC economies buy 75 per cent of New Zealand’s exports, and this year’s host, China, is the country’s largest trading partner. For a small, remote economy that earns its living selling dairy, meat, wood and fruit to distant buyers, APEC is vital.

Luxon’s press statement said New Zealand’s participation was in line with the caretaker convention, the rules that apply between an election and the formation of a new government. Under that convention, an outgoing administration keeps the country running but avoids major new decisions or commitments that a successor might want to change.

In 2023, Damien O’Connor, who remained trade minister until a new government was sworn in, attended APEC in San Francisco on the government’s behalf. Luxon, then prime minister-elect, did not attend, as coalition negotiations were still under way. This time, the prime minister himself is making the trip.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters will separately attend the East Asia Summit in Manila on November 16 and 17. Luxon’s office said both meetings “bring together leaders and ministers from across the Indo-Pacific, and issues important to New Zealand’s security and prosperity will be discussed.”

What is APEC anyway ?

APEC can be easy to dismiss. It has no treaty, no secretariat with enforcement powers and no ability to impose penalties. It works by consensus and peer pressure, and its members are called “economies” rather than countries, a wording that lets Taiwan and Hong Kong sit at the table alongside Beijing and Washington.

It began in 1989 as a ministerial meeting in Canberra, from a belief that the fast-growing Pacific Rim needed a forum to keep trade flowing. New Zealand was a founding member. Leaders began meeting in 1993, and the group set itself the ambitious Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment across the region. Those goals have never been fully met, but they shaped a generation of tariff cuts and, more quietly, of customs and standards cooperation.

The 21 members together account for roughly three-fifths of global economic output and nearly half of world trade. That includes the United States, China, Japan, Australia and most of New Zealand’s major export markets.

New Zealand hosted the leaders’ meeting in 1999, and the country hosted again, virtually, in 2021, when the Covid pandemic kept everyone at home. Kiwi exporters have long valued APEC ’s dull but important work on border procedures, product standards and digital trade rules, the sort of detail that decides whether a shipment of NZ kiwifruit clears a port in China in two days, or ten.

A Chinese stage

The Shenzhen summit is the third time China has hosted the leaders’ meeting, after Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014. The choice of Shenzhen, the frantic manufacturing and technology hub next to Hong Kong, carries its own message about the economy Beijing wants to showcase.

For New Zealand, the venue adds a layer of significance. China’s market has been central to the dairy, meat and forestry sectors for years, and any hint of friction, or of progress, in the relationship is watched closely in Wellington and in rural New Zealand alike.

How much the caretaker delegation can achieve in Shenzhen is another matter. The convention that limits big commitments at home also shapes what New Zealand can promise abroad. Officials will likely favour advocacy and relationship-building over anything that binds the next government.

For now, Todd McClay and Christopher Luxon will carry New Zealand’s trade message into the room, but the final results on November 27 will settle exactly who carries it afterwards.

Banner Image: PM Luxon's very first meeting with President Trump was on the sidelines of an APEC CEO Summit in South Korea.

 Asia Media Centre