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Speaker 1: So New Zealand Defense Force has confirmed one of its

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Speaker 1: navy ships in East Asia was recently shadowed by seven

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Speaker 1: Chinese warships. It was last month when the hm In

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Speaker 1: zed s alti at Or was conducting surveillance operations. This

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Speaker 1: was related to North Korea's nuclear program. Robert Patman is

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Speaker 1: an international relations expert and with US Morning Robert, Good morning, Hell.

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Speaker 1: How serious do you think this is?

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it's very serious, but I think the

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Speaker 2: fact that the h Z s aut was shadowed by

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Speaker 2: seven New Zealand warships at different times indicates that the

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Speaker 2: Chinese are not relenting in their claim that the Taiwan

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Speaker 2: Strait is not an international warway but waterway. Actually they

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Speaker 2: claimed sovereignty over it. So there's no sign there backing down.

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Speaker 2: And I don't think that's really surprising given the current

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Speaker 2: international situation.

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Speaker 1: No, not at all. Is it possible that actually US

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Speaker 1: being there at all as a provocation to them? I mean,

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Speaker 1: we feel pretty aggrieved when they come all the way

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Speaker 1: down here.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I suppose they could interpret it this way,

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Speaker 2: but I think what we have to take into account

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Speaker 2: is that China has as its economic and military capabilities

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Speaker 2: grown over the years. It's the second superpower of the

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Speaker 2: United States. What used to be acceptable to China is

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Speaker 2: no longer acceptable. He's had a long standing claim over Taiwan,

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Speaker 2: and I think this sort of growing consciousness of military

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Speaker 2: might means that China is less tolerant, less accepting of

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Speaker 2: what it sees as infringements on its sovereign claim. But

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Speaker 2: to be fair, you know, most countries in the world

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Speaker 2: do see the Taiwan Straight as an international waterway, and

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Speaker 2: we also as a country have very good relations with Taiwan.

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Speaker 2: We don't have diplomatic relations with them, but we certainly

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Speaker 2: have a free trade agreement with Taiwan and it host

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Speaker 2: people to people relations. So I think news I mean,

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Speaker 2: let's be quite clear, why was New Zealand there going

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Speaker 2: through the Taiwan Straight Because it was on a mission

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Speaker 2: to enforce UN sanctions against North Korea, so it wasn't

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Speaker 2: aimed at China. The ship sailed from the South China

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Speaker 2: Sea to the North Asian region via the Taiwan Strait,

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Speaker 2: and we now learned that actually occurred over a month ago.

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Speaker 1: Robert, thanks very much running us through. Appreciate it as

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Speaker 1: Robert Patman International relations experience.

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