Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has arrived in Beijing, where he is to meet China's top leadership, including President Xi Jinping.
Speaking at a media briefing, Hipkins - on reports that Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta got a "dressing down" from her Chinese counterparts during her visit to the country a couple of months ago - said as with many diplomatic relationships there were areas of agreement, and areas of disagreement.
"One of the things that's really important about the New Zealand-China relationship is that we continue to identify those areas where we have mutual interests, where we can work together, where we can co-operate - because there are a lot of them.
"And that we have a relationship that's strong enough that where we do disagree we can share that openly with each other."
He said Mahuta characterised her meeting as "a constructive meeting".
"Constructive meetings don't always involve unanimous agreement."
Looking ahead to his own meetings, he said he was expecting they would be able to talk about areas of agreement and disagreement.
Hipkins speaking in Beijing. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The New Zealand-China relationship is very important to Aotearoa, and that was evidenced by the fact there is a "strong business delegation here who are doing business in China while I'm here as well", Hipkins said.
"We'll also be aiming to continue to strengthen that government-to-government relationship so that where there are areas where we disagree that we have open dialogue about those and we're able to convey those on either side."
Those areas of disagreement were the same as they had been for some time.
"They're long-standing. Our position on a range of issues around human rights has not changed, our position on geopolitical issues has not changed. Of course I'm happy, once we've had those meetings, I'm sure we can go into more detail about what was discussed but they won't come as a surprise to New Zealanders."
New Zealand as opposed to the war in Ukraine and any countries in a position to influence that positively should do so, Hipkins said.
"Long-standing message from New Zealand to China and to other international partners since the war began has been if they can use their influence to bring that to a conclusion to de-escalate the situation and to end the war, we'd strongly encourage them to do that.
"We'd encourage other countries including China to use any influence that they might have."
Trade is a major focus for the trip, as well as developing the relationship with New Zealand's largest trading partner.
Something like a pōwhiri to start a big international trip was important to "get the trip off on the right foot, but it's also I think a good showcase of who we are as a country", Hipkins said.
Tikanga Māori is a big part of who we were as a country, and "actually it's a topic of a lot of international interest, in all my time as prime minister and before that as a minister there has been a real interest in New Zealand's relationship with its indigenous people", he said.
Hipkins said the most important thing for his trip was sending the message that New Zealand was open for business.
"We want our business people to continue to transact, business up here in China it's a huge export market for us, we want to see travel from China to New Zealand really ramping up again."
Russia
Hipkins said the goverment was monitoring the situation in Russia very closely.
"It is I guess an area of interest for the whole world what is happening in Russia at the moment. I am advised by MFAT there is about somewhere around 30-plus New Zealanders registered on the SafeTravel website in Russia at the moment, so obviously we keep an eye on their safety.
"At this point we're just monitoring the situation."
If it was a catalyst for de-escalation of the Ukraine conflict, that was something New Zealand would strongly support and welcome, he said.
