On June 4, 2021, Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng met with New Zealand's ambassador to China Clare Fearnley. Both sides exchanged views on China-New Zealand relations.

Xie Feng said, with major changes and a global pandemic unseen in a century, globalization is facing a countercurrent, the world economy is facing multiple pressures and global problems are emerging one after another. In the face of these severe challenges, it is more important than ever for the international community to work together for solidarity and cooperation. All countries should handle state-to-state relations on the basis of equality and mutual respect, uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law, oppose unilateralism, bullying, political manipulation and interference in other countries' internal affairs, adhere to true multilateralism, and jointly uphold international fairness and justice.

Xie Feng said, China and New Zealand are important cooperative partners to each other. Over the past 49 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China-New Zealand relations have grown steadily and made many "firsts" that we can be proud of. China is full of confidence in further advancing the China-New Zealand comprehensive strategic partnership. China stands ready to work together with New Zealand, based on the principle of mutual respect, seeking common grounds while shelving differences in politics, deepening complementary advantages and upholding mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation pattern in economy, and adhering to the correct direction of diversity, harmony and mutual learning in culture and people-to-people exchanges, to promote the bilateral relations a model of friendly, mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation among countries with different social systems, stages of development, cultural traditions and economic volumes. Both sides should make full use of the upgrade bonuses of the China-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, speed up the negotiation and implementation of the specific cooperation plan under the Belt and Road Initiative, promote the sustainable development of education and tourism cooperation between the two countries, actively explore ways to foster new growth points in areas such as environmental governance, ecological protection, food safety, scientific and technological innovation, and build more cooperation platforms by running bilateral dialogue mechanism well. China hopes New Zealand will protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises from all countries, including China.

Xie Feng stressed that the Xinjiang-related and Hong Kong-related issues concern China's sovereignty, territorial integrity and China's core interests. No external interference is allowed. The tracing of the origin of the coronavirus is a serious scientific issue and a global task that cannot be left to politicians to manipulate, not to mention allowing intelligence agencies to lead investigations. China firmly opposes politicizing scientific issues, blaming China and carrying out political blackmail in the name of tracing the origin.

Fearnley said, its relationship with China is one of New Zealand's most important bilateral relations. New Zealand adheres to the tradition of independent diplomacy and will continue to develop relations with China in line with the principle of mutual respect. New Zealand is willing to conduct more exchanges with China at high levels and other levels, strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in the fields of economy, trade, science and technology, environmental protection, education and tourism as well as in international multilateral affairs and create more highlights for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries next year.