The Cook Islands squabble

This has been further exacerbated by the presence of Chinese navy ships in the Tasman sea.

International trade specialist Stephen Jacobi says these incidents are deeply unhelpful for NZ trying to maintain a constructive relationship with China.

He says NZ cannot afford to antagonise the Chinese.

"I can't help thinking that the way that China has played its hand suggests that they are not as well disposed to us as they might have been in the past," he says.

Jacobi has been in Australia in the past week attending a meeting of the APEC Business Council (ABAC) - an independent high-level group of business people who advise the economic leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on priority issues for business in the region.

He says there was a lot of concern among members about the possible impacts of what might happen, but he says they all seem to agree that it's best to wait and see what actually develops and then be nimble in response.

Jacobi says NZ and other ABAC partners still have a lot of investment in the future of the global rules based system and if the US wants to take itself out of that, NZ still has the rest of the world to deal with.