An internationally respected scholar on Chinese foreign and security policy, Bonnie Glaser, made that comment during a recent visit to Dunedin.
Ms Glaser, who heads the China Power Project at the Washington DC-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in the United States, said that China clearly had some measure of economic influence over North Korea.
But China did not enjoy a particularly close political relationship with the North Korean leadership, and a Chinese special envoy recently sent to North Korea had been effectively "humiliated" when he was unable to meet meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, she said in an interview.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade official said Mfat had brought Ms Glaser to New Zealand, "partly because of our work to improve public knowledge of China and Asia here".
Ms Glaser was optimistic that New Zealand could successfully continue to balance its close trading links with China with its security relationships with Western countries, including Australia and the United States.
Former New Zealand defence minister Gerry Brownlee said last year that it was extremely important that communication lines, sea lanes and skies remained open in the South China Sea, where China had been expanding its presence.
Ms Glaser said that close trading ties with China had proved "very positive" for New Zealand, but there was a need to be "aware" that pressures could be applied, and there were "issues for New Zealand", including in maintaining our independence, including over the South China Sea, she said. Ms Glaser started her New Zealand trip in Dunedin this week, where she met academics from the University of Otago politics department, as well as business people and Dunedin city councillors.
Her trip included visits to Wellington, and to Auckland, where she completed her last speaking engagement yesterday. China had clearly become more influential in world affairs, and New Zealand would benefit from working closely with like-minded countries, and learning from issues which had arisen elsewhere.
Consideration was being given in Australia to banning political donations from other countries, including China, and there had been concern in the United States over the stealing of commercial intellectual property from some firms, by computer hackers, she said.
