New Zealand China Council Podcast

Currently over 33% of New Zealand’s international students are from China, totaling almost 30,000 students in 2024. The lifelong connections these links create have helped to fuel the bilateral relationship in many other ways. But it’s also a challenging sector: Evolving Chinese student preferences and choices, an increased focus on complex in-China education delivery, risk vs opportunity calculat...

The Schwarzman Scholars Programme offers an unparalleled chance to study global affairs for a year at Tsinghua University in Beijing, taught by and studying alongside some of the world’s best and brightest. Yet few New Zealanders have participated. Jamie Wood is one who has. In this podcast Jamie talks about her experiences, and the windows into China and the world opened through the programme; as...

What does it take to build a food brand in one of the world’s fastest-changing markets? What food trends are shaping Chinese consumer choices in 2025? How are consumers responding to sustainability when it comes to food? And do Kiwi exporters need to keep up with “China speed”? In this episode, Kiwi entrepreneur Christiana Zhu 朱佳慧 talks to the Council’s Summer Xia about her journey as Founder-C...

Are China’s annual ‘Two Sessions’ (known in Chinese as ‘lianghui’) in early March the world’s largest political meetings you didn’t hear about? We’re back again for a discussion of these critical political meetings in 2025, hosting our returning contributor Associate Professor Jason Young, Director of the Contemporary China Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington, talking with our Cou...

In February 2025, we launched our latest research report: Te hono a te ao Māori ki a Haina: Māori approaches to engagement with China past, present, future. Hear from the report authors and other rangatira involved in the relationship, to understand this unique partnership and the future opportunities and prosperity it offers.

This September in Aotearoa New Zealand, we celebrate two special weeks: Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (14–21 Sept), marking the 52nd anniversary of the Māori Language Petition on Saturday 14th, and New Zealand Chinese Language Week (22–28 Sept). Both initiatives promote language learning in New Zealand by raising awareness, sharing cultural stories, and connecting communities. Languages bridge cultures,...

Like New Zealand, Australia is also tracking China’s economy closely, as well as grappling with increasingly complex regional geopolitics. It’s always helpful for us to swap notes, especially with an acknowledged Australia-China expert. Professor James Laurenceson is Director of the Australia China Research Institute (ACRI), Australia’s first and only research centre focused exclusively on the bil...

China is New Zealand’s largest source of imports, whether ready for consumption under NZ or increasingly well-known Chinese brands, or providing materials and components for our domestic manufacturing outputs. Does this leave us exposed - are there particular products from China we can’t do without, and what would happen if supply was interrupted? Should New Zealand be looking at diversification s...

Every March, the ‘lianghui’ or ‘Two Sessions’ political meetings in Beijing set the scene and key directions for China’s year ahead: its intended socio-economic goals and strategies, priority sectors, key personnel appointments and foreign policy settings. These are valuable signposts for New Zealanders following latest developments in China. In this podcast, Director of the Contemporary China Res...

‘How to feed 1.4 billion people’ is already a big question. And how to do it sustainably? Answers to these questions are not only crucial for people in China, but also important for New Zealand. China is our largest trade partner: Understanding its future sustainable food policy directions, and how this will affect China’s food consumption, production and investment, is essential. In late 2023 we...

The New Zealand Business Roundtable in China (NZBRiC), a representative body for New Zealand companies doing business in and with China, recently completed a groundbreaking survey of over 50 kiwi businesses to provide a first-hand, on-the-ground perspective of the real business environment and mood for New Zealand companies operating there in 2023. In this podcast we explore the main strategies, c...

Collaborative Horizons report launch Webinar by New Zealand China Council Podcast

How do New Zealanders assess China’s response to climate change? We recently had a unique opportunity to work with InstatData, a kiwi start-up which analyses social media posts to gauge New Zealanders’ opinions on particular issues. We put their technology to the test to focus on China and climate change, as an issue we suspected would reveal diverse public perceptions. And then we discussed the f...

This podcast is a recording of the webinar launching our report “Resuming Normal Service? Assessing future prospects for New Zealand-China services trade”, jointly held with the North Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence. It includes an exclusive briefing by the report author and a discussion featuring services trade experts, moderated by the Executive Director of the New Zealand China Council....

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China took place recently in Beijing. The pivotal five-yearly event in China’s political calendar drew global interest. But beyond the media headlines, what were the key outcomes of the Congress and how could these affect China’s policy directions and New Zealand’s future engagement with China? In this podcast, Jason Young, Associate Professor i...

This week is New Zealand Chinese Language Week. We sat down with our Council members Kiri Nathan, founder of her eponymous clothing brand Kiri Nathan Limited, and Mark Tanner, Founder and Managing Director of Shanghai based market strategy and research agency China Skinny, to explore their own Chinese language journeys. In this podcast you will hear how two New Zealanders have tackled learning and...

In late April the New Zealand China Council released a report commissioned from Sense Partners, “In Perspective: The New Zealand-China Trade and Business Relationship 2022 Update”. Amongst other findings, the report confirmed that China’s share of New Zealand’s global goods exports reached 32.6% in 2021. How we assess this situation and what it means for our exporters were the key themes of a webi...

The Southern Link places New Zealand in the middle of a global value chain connecting Asia and South America, generating growth in trade, tourism and export opportunities. Transiting via New Zealand offers the shortest air route between many major cities on the two continents, along with time zone advantages and efficient hubbing and servicing. The NZCC commissioned a report on the Southern Link t...

A year on, we reconnect with the education sector to discuss the impact of Covid-19. Our guests, Derek McCormack (Vice Chancellor - AUT), Danny Chan (Co-founder - ACG and Director - UP Education) and Ainslie Moore (Deputy Director – International, Auckland University) discuss the impact of Covid-19 on their institutions, explain how they have pivoted, how competitors have fared, and the next steps...

Kiri Nathan is the founder of her eponymous clothing brand Kiri Nathan Ltd. Kiri has been travelling to China for years, a journey that started with sourcing fabric from one of the world’s largest textile markets. In this podcast we speak with Kiri about her China experience, including taking a hīkoi of young designers to market - which has led to the development of NZ’s inaugural Māori fashion co...

"It’s not necessarily about providing the lowest priced product that will make you a success in China... it’s about being able to add value and continue to create value." Magic Memories started as fast photo service for tourists on the Queenstown gondola more than 20 years ago. It is now a global business with Magic Memories teams operating at more than 200 tourist attractions around the world, in...

This podcast is a recording of a New Zealand China Trade Association (NZCTA) and North Asia CAPE technology focused breakfast seminar featuring John Cochrane, General Manager of Facteon Intelligent Technology. John has had a fascinating China journey, working across both the private and public sectors on China focused business. John was CEO of Beijing-based Commtest, which produces vibration-analy...

How has the Australia-China relationship changed over the last few years? What has been the impact of the spill-over of politics into the economic realm? Have views on China become more polarised, and what is the impact of increased tensions on Australia’s Chinese community? These are some of the topics covered in our wide-ranging discussion with Professor James Laurenceson - an economist and the...

This podcast is a webinar from the NZ Contemporary China Research Centre's annual conference, which brings together leading scholars to examine key issues in China studies for New Zealand. In this webinar David Dollar, senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Centre at the Brookings Institute, discusses the challenges for the Chinese economy in light of the global recession and trade tensions w...

“A lot of these Chinese companies are just much more dynamic and take more of a Lean Start-up approach. And I think as New Zealand companies exporting, we need to be aware of the way they operate. And in some cases, try and replicate some of the structural advantages.” What are the current consumer trends in China? How are New Zealand businesses tracking, and what could they be doing better? How a...