New Zealand is debating over a replacement plane for the Prime Minister
The Prime Minister of New Zealand embarked on his trip to China on two planes. This causes trouble. But there have been many unfortunate incidents in the past, including in Antarctica.
BEIJING – Chinese state and party leader Xi Jinping received New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins. At the meeting held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the Chinese president welcomed the fact that Hipkins has attached great importance to relations between the two countries since he took office in January, state television reported. The New Zealand Prime Minister said he wants to expand cooperation with China and take relations “to a new level.”
But his visit to China caused problems upon his arrival: due to concerns about the reliability of the plane in which the Prime Minister was traveling, the plane was accompanied on Sunday by an empty Boeing 757. The opposition strongly criticized this measure amid the climate crisis: according to media reports, the leader of the National Party, Christopher Luxon, pointed to the rise in carbon dioxide emissions, which was completely unnecessary.
Labor leader Hipkins will travel to China with a large trade delegation until Friday. On Tuesday, he participated in the World Economic Forum’s “New Champions” meeting in Tianjin. The three-day “Summer Davos”, which was opened by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, will be held again for the first time since the outbreak of the epidemic with participants from 140 countries.
The New Zealand Herald wrote that the accompanying Hipkins machine should avoid breakdowns like those that have occurred in the past. Pacific nation rulers often had bad luck with their aircraft:
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was stranded in Antarctica in 2022 and had to be rescued by an Italian plane. Last year, former Defense Minister Benny Henare’s C-130 Hercules plane crashed in the Solomon Islands. In 2016, Prime Minister John Key had to cancel a trip to India in part because his plane broke down in Townsville, Australia.
Hipkins’ spokesman tried to reassure people by saying that the second plane did not fly to China, but only to the Philippines. She will now travel to Darwin, Australia and provide support from there if necessary. However, ACT leader David Seymour estimated that emissions from the extra aircraft are equivalent to driving a Ford Ranger three times as far as the moon. New Zealand’s aircraft fleet is ’embarrassingly old and dilapidated’.
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