New Zealand International Review, January/February 2025

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NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

REVIEW

Guy Fiti Sinclair on navigating security, development and climate challenges in the Pacific.

7 Asking the right questions

Andrew Wierzbicki reflects on the challenges and misconceptions involved in crafting New Zealand’s defence policy.

12 Fostering better understanding

Winston Peters outlines a crucial need in advancing New Zealand’s relationship with Asia.

16 Towards a new Chinese–Russian economic deal

Dmitry Shlapentokh reflects on the outcome of recent discussions in Moscow.

19 Returning to a fine tradition

Christopher Luxon outlines the Coalition government’s approach to foreign policy.

23 Small state diplomacy

Frederick Mitchell discusses The Bahamas’ approach to climate change, democracy and security.

25 COMMENT A chance for peace

Kyrylo Kutcher suggests championing the Charter to fight veto abuse in the UN Security Council.

27 BOOKS

Bob Woodward: War (Roderic Alley).

Terence O'Brien: Consolations of Insignificance: A New Zealand Diplomatic Memoir (Beth Greener).

Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij and Paul Spoonley (eds): Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand (Tim Fadgen). 31

33

Managing Editor: IAN McGIBBON

Corresponding Editor: STEPHEN HOADLEY (Auckland)

Book Review Editor: ANTHONY

SMITH

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MIDDLETON, ROB RABEL

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The views expressed in New Zealand International Review are entirely those of the authors and do not reflect those of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, which is an independent non-governmental organisation fostering discussion and understanding of international affairs, and especially New Zealand’s involvement in them. By permission of the authors the copyright of all articles appearing in New Zealand International Review is held by the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.

Conflicting currents

Guy Fiti Sinclair on navigating security, development and climate challenges in the Pacific.

The Pacific Reset in 2018 focused New Zealand’s attention on the Pacific region. Concern about Chinese penetration into this region is partly responsible for this development. Rapidly expanding engagements are, however, largely failing to translate into enhanced social, economic or environmental benefits for the region. Their dominant focus on geopolitics and security runs the risk of sidelining — or even conflicting with — issues viewed as more important by Pacific countries, including development and especially climate change. By centring the region’s own priorities — particularly climate, development and a broad conception of security — New Zealand will foster deeper trust with its Pacific neighbours.

Since 2018, consecutive New Zealand governments have given higher priority to the Pacific region in their foreign policy. This has been driven, at least in part, by concerns about growing geostrategic competition in the region, spurred by initiatives by the People’s Republic of China to establish closer ties with Pacific countries. Over the same period, several other countries have increased their own diplomatic, development and military presences in the Pacific, often in the context of broader ‘IndoPacific’ framings. Nevertheless, these rapidly expanding engagements are largely failing to translate into enhanced social, economic or environmental benefits for the region. To the contrary, the dominant focus on geopolitics and security in these engagements runs the risk of sidelining — or even conflicting with — issues viewed as more important by Pacific countries, including development and especially climate change, which Pacific countries have identified as their most significant existential threat. The dynamics of New Zealand’s relations with the Pacific are thus more complex, and demand more careful navigation, than ever before.

Complex region

Guy Fiti Sinclair is an associate professor and the associate dean (Pacific) at the Auckland Law School, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau. This article is based on a longer report published by the NZIIA, which synthesises key insights from a group of fifteen experts on international politics in the Pacific region, convened at the NZIIA Pacific Symposium in Auckland in late June 2024.

The actors, interests and rate of interactions shaping international politics in the Pacific have changed significantly over the past decade. Already in 2018, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders recognised that they operated within ‘a dynamic geopolitical environment leading to an increasingly crowded and complex region’.1 In addition to Pacific countries and territories that are members of the PIF,² a variety of more or less ‘external’ actors engaged in the region can be distinguished, including: l two metropolitan PIF members, New Zealand and Australia, which see themselves as integral to the region; l a set of more powerful states on the Pacific Rim and beyond, including ‘traditional partners’ such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Japan, as well as ‘non-traditional partners’ like China, Taiwan and Russia; and l a significant number of other ‘new’ actors that are becoming increasingly active in the region, including Indonesia, India, South Korea, Israel, Germany and Norway. These ‘external’ actors have varied histories of engagement in

the Pacific. These include periods of more or less violent colonisation, imperial rivalry, economic exploitation, nuclear testing and war, as well as more recent episodes of rising geopolitical tension and ideological contestation during the Cold War and the Global War on Terrorism.³ Notably, several Western powers, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, continue to hold colonial territories in the Pacific, which they invoke to justify their continued involvement in the region. It is worth recalling that New Zealand also has its own dark chapters of colonialism in the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Samoa and Nauru.

All this suggests that a more fluid set of dynamics is at play, beyond what a simple internal/external model can capture. Some of the ‘external’ powers mentioned above have themselves claimed to be ‘Pacific nations’ at various times, including the United States and Indonesia. New Caledonia and French Polynesia were admitted to full membership of the PIF in 2016, and PIF leaders have recently approved the admission of Guam and American Samoa as associate members of the PIF, arguably granting both France and the United States toeholds in that organisation. Moreover, Taiwan’s influence among Pacific countries has waned as China’s influence has expanded, and the United Kingdom has become markedly more engaged in the region in recent years.

Non-state actors also contribute significantly to the dynamics of geostrategic competition in the Pacific. In addition to the core United Nations agencies,4 other international organisations have become increasingly active, including multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the European Union and a range of climatefocused entities.⁵ Multinational corporations have the potential to play crucial roles in regional economic development plans, such as Google’s multi-billion dollar ‘Pacific Connect Initiative’, which includes plans to lay sub-sea cables between several Pacific countries. Philanthropic entities, such as the Bezos Earth Fund and the Waitt Foundation, have also become significant players. These and other non-state actors interact with Pacific countries and ‘external’ state actors in a variety of ways that influence their political relationships.

Security arrangements

These fluid and complex dynamics are particularly evident in the evolution of security and defence arrangements in the Pacific. Responding to the perceived threat of China’s growing influence, ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategies have proliferated over the past decade, from Japan to France, Germany, the Netherlands, the European Union and the United States. Several states have produced development and security policies specifically targeted to the Pacific, such as Australia’s ‘Pacific Step-Up’, the United States’ ‘Pacific Pledge’, the United Kingdom’s ‘Pacific Uplift’, Indonesia’s ‘Pacific Elevation’ and India’s ‘Act East’.

Moreover, Pacific countries have entered into more than 60 security agreements with external actors. The vast majority of these are with so-called ‘traditional’ partners such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States.6 Under the AUKUS trilateral security partnership, the United Kingdom and the United States are assisting Australia to purchase nuclear-powered submarines to support their shared strategic goals in the IndoPacific region, raising concerns in many Pacific countries. Nevertheless, the security arrangements sought by ‘non-traditional’ partners — in particular, China’s security deal with Solomon Islands and its proposed region-wide agreement with Pacific countries — have attracted much more media attention and

concern in Western-aligned states.

Particular forms of security engagement have become more salient in recent years. Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief are sites of significant competition and politicisation, particularly since the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga in January 2022, which drew responses from defence personnel from other Pacific countries, as well as ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ partners. Moreover, transnational crime is a subject of widespread concern, with clear links between Pacific countries and lucrative drug markets in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In 2022, China floated the possibility of establishing a police training centre in Solomon Islands. In the same year, the Australian Federal Police began developing a Pacific Policing Initiative, including a large training facility for Pacific countries’ police officers in Queensland and new arrangements to support the growth of the Solomon Islands police force.

Maritime security is another important area where geostrategic competition is growing. Since 2016, the Australian government has deployed twenty Guardian-class patrol boats to Pacific countries to assist with border security, search and rescue and policing tasks. China recently added 26 coast guard vessels to the register of authorised inspection vessels to operate in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission convention area. At the same time, the European Union’s Indo-Pacific Strategy aims to extend a maritime capacity-building project to the southern Pacific to combat maritime drug trafficking, human trafficking, wildlife crime and illicit financial flows linked to terrorism.⁷

Development assistance

Flows of aid and development assistance have long been used as instruments of geopolitical competition. According to the Lowy Institute, the number of donors in the region has more than doubled between 2008 and 2021, from 31 to 81.⁸ Australia stands out as the largest donor by far, with the Asian Development Bank in second place. In contrast, China’s share of official development finance is relatively small and significantly below its peak in 2016. However, this does not necessarily entail a loss of influence in the region, as China has increasingly targeted its aid to specific countries, expanded the proportion of grants it offers and started to work more with and through multilateral development banks.

It is equally important to note the purposes towards which aid is being directed in the region. The past half-decade has seen record-high spending on infrastructure, boosted by the launch of the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the

Foreign Minister Winston Peters unveils a plaque at the New Zealand-funded Tuvalu Fisheries building in 2019

Pacific in 2019, while spending on education and health has declined in relative terms. Whereas much of the concern about Chinese investment has related to ‘dual use’ infrastructure, such as the construction of strategically situated ports and airfields which could be used for both civilian and military purposes, China has recently redirected its focus from large-scale infrastructure projects to ‘small and beautiful’ projects with a green component.⁹

Indeed, the proportion of aid directed towards climate adaptation and mitigation has grown steadily, led by Australia and Japan. Other significant players include the European Union and climate-specific multilateral organisations, such as the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund. However, the overall amount of climate finance provided to the Pacific remains much lower than needed and appears to include projects which are not fundamentally concerned with climate change mitigation or adaptation, even if marked as having a ‘significant’ climate component.10

Pacific perspectives

At a collective level, Pacific countries have expressed clearly what kinds of engagement they seek from external actors. The PIF’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent sets out the vision of Pacific leaders for the next quarter-century, centred on ‘a resilient Pacific Region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, that ensures all Pacific peoples can lead free, healthy and productive lives’.11 The seven key thematic areas outlined in the strategy — political leadership and regionalism, people-centred development, peace and security, resources and economic development, climate change and disasters, ocean and natural environment, and technology and connectivity — define the region’s collective priorities in its own words. Central to this vision is an ‘expanded concept of security’ that includes human security, humanitarian assistance, environmental security and resilience to climate change and other disasters.12 Consistent with a long-held vision of a peaceful and non-aligned Pacific region, PIF leaders have adopted a posture of ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ and have expressed dismay at how growing geostrategic competition in the region has tended to narrow their strategic choices and horizons.13

Connected to the 2050 Strategy, PIF leaders have promulgated a set of ‘Blue Pacific Principles for Dialogue and Engagement’.14 Intended to emphasise the importance of ‘genuine partnerships that reflect the collective priorities of the region’, these principles require: engaging with the full PIF membership; progressing PIF priorities; following a ‘partnership approach’ in planning, programming and delivery; utilising existing regional and international mechanisms; and developing joint outcome statements and processes for implementation. PIF leaders have expressed concern that geostrategic competition among Forum Dialogue Partners — which include the United States, the United Kingdom, China and the European Union — may distract from regional priorities and even lead to military conflict. To help address this, PIF leaders are considering introducing a tiered approach to working with Dialogue Partners, similar to that used by ASEAN, in the context of an overall review of the regional architecture.

These expressions of collective vision and intent have achieved some success in shaping the rhetoric, if not the behaviour, of external actors. The language of the ‘Blue Pacific’ has been adopted in policy statements from New Zealand and Australia, as might be expected from PIF members. Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared that his government supports

‘Pacific island countries… in implementing the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, contributing to the building of a peaceful, harmonious, secure, inclusive and prosperous Blue Pacific’.15 Likewise, the Biden administration’s Pacific Partnership Strategy makes multiple references to the 2050 Strategy and commits the United States ‘to address Pacific priorities working together with the Pacific’ in accordance with ‘principles of Pacific regionalism, transparency and accountability’.16 In June 2022, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States collectively launched an informal initiative, the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP), with the avowed aim of ‘further elevat[ing] Pacific regionalism, with a strong and united Pacific Islands Forum at its centre, as a vital pillar of the regional architecture and of our respective approaches in the region’.17

There are grounds to wonder whether these pronouncements amount to much more than lip service, if not the ‘bluewashing’ of geostrategic ambitions. It is doubtful whether the 2050 Strategy has had any real influence on Chinese activities in the region. Moreover, the US government’s Pacific Partnership Strategy is explicitly aligned to its Indo-Pacific strategy, which makes no mention of ‘Blue Pacific’ priorities; Australia’s latest International Development Policy is also largely focused on the Indo-Pacific region, with little explicit connection to the 2050 Strategy; and New Zealand’s latest national security strategy (National Security Strategy 2023–2028) makes only one reference to the 2050 Strategy, as compared with twelve references to ‘Indo-Pacific’. Pacific leaders frequently view IndoPacific strategies as inconsistent with their priorities and values, especially when linked in practice with military initiatives such as AUKUS.18 The announcement of the PBP, without prior consultation and agreement with PIF leaders, has similarly been criticised for co-opting the ‘Blue Pacific’ narrative while disregarding the PIF’s ‘Blue Pacific Principles’ for engagement.19 It is inevitable that existing relationships between particular Pacific countries and ‘external’ actors will shape alliances for some time to come. As territories of France, New Caledonia and French Polynesia serve as crucial bases for France’s naval forces. Three Micronesian states are parties to a Compact of Free Association that enables the United States to operate armed forces on their territories in return for funding grants and social services. Papua New Guinea receives significant development aid, as well as security support, from Australia. Such alliances may be inevitable in such a diverse region,and are not necessarily inimical to collective identity and action. However, they do have the potential to create gaps and inequalities, making the high-minded goal of ‘friends to all’ difficult to achieve in practice.

Regional dilemmas

Proclamations of collective solidarity by PIF leaders sit uneasily with differences that have emerged among Pacific countries in recent years. The crisis that emerged in 2021, when five Micronesian states threatened to withdraw from the PIF, now appears to have subsided. However, China’s growing presence in Kiribati and Solomon Islands, including through the provision of security services, has clearly unsettled relationships in the region. In one recent incident, language referring to Taiwan as a development partner was removed from a PIF leaders’ communiqué at China’s insistence.20 Fully alert to the global geopolitical context, Pacific countries are conscious of China’s strategic ambition to displace the United States as ‘a regional and global hegemon’.21 Many might prefer dealing with ‘traditional partners’ such as Australia and New Zealand but see engagement with China as a pragmatic necessity. Others view China more posi-

tively, as offering access to more markets, finance and technology without the politically motivated development models they see as being imposed by Western states.

Pacific countries are faced with a number of other dilemmas regarding the kinds of engagement they wish to see in the region. Choices must be made whether to continue to focus on building infrastructure or to spend more on ‘human development’, such as health and education programmes. Investments in infrastructure, including those with significant climate components such as hydropower projects, are often financed by multilateral development banks, adding to the risk of debt distress and raising doubts about whether the current ‘building spree’ is sustainable. Labour migration has long provided a significant source of income for Pacific countries, with remittances far outweighing foreign direct investment in many countries. However, the more recent formalisation of seasonal labour schemes and the creation of new pathways to residence in Australia and New Zealand have led to dramatic and devastating shortages of skilled labour in Pacific countries.22

Finally, an emerging issue that threatens to divide the region is the possibility of deep sea mining. Some Pacific leaders have seen this as an opportunity to raise the money needed to build climate resilience; others have called for a moratorium or outright ban.23 Positioned at the intersection of two priorities in the 2050 Strategy — the drive for economic development and the desire to protect the Pacific Ocean and environment — deepsea mining is often framed as providing critical minerals for the transition to ‘green’ energy, with the potential to attract geopolitical competition over securing minerals for military purposes.

Greatest strengths

In navigating these conflicting currents, Aotearoa New Zealand’s greatest strengths lie in the close associations and trust it has already established with Pacific countries, both intergovernmentally and personally. As an island state in the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand benefits from close genealogical and historical links between tangata whenua and tangata Pasifika. New Zealand diplomats and military personnel have accrued considerable goodwill in Pacific countries, having made positive contributions to resolving conflicts in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance also aligns well with Pacific countries’ aspirations for a peaceful and nuclear-free Pacific.

These connections have formed the basis of recent shifts in New Zealand’s foreign policy towards the Pacific.24 Successive New Zealand governments have upheld and promoted Pacific regional institutions, committed to the 2050 Strategy and sought to channel security concerns through the PIF and related mechanisms. The Pacific Reset in 2018 emphasised New Zealand’s Pacific identity, significantly boosted the government’s Pacific budget and saw a corresponding expansion of diplomatic and development activities in the region. The ‘Pacific Resilience’ framework, adopted in late 2021, went further in advocating an approach grounded in the Treaty of Waitangi and a Māori world view, including the principles of ‘Tātai Hono’ (The recognition of deep and enduring whakapapa connections) and ‘Tātou Tātou’ (All of us together).25 These strategies all align well with the expressed interests of Pacific countries and have the potential to enhance New Zealand’s reputation and mana in the region.

Yet there remains a risk that New Zealand believes it is doing better than it actually is. New Zealand diplomats and government officials can be susceptible to misreading the messag-

es they receive from Pacific countries. Such misunderstandings may be more likely to arise if Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials view the Pacific as a less attractive place to be posted than other regions; if MFAT sends its junior diplomats to ‘cut their teeth’ in Pacific postings; or is distrustful of sending Pasifika diplomats to Pacific postings. More fundamentally, deep-seated paternalistic attitudes towards Pacific countries pose a continuing challenge to the success of New Zealand’s engagements in the region.

Climate change is one area of potential weakness, where a mismatch is perceived to exist between New Zealand’s rhetoric and its actions. From the perspective of Pacific countries, New Zealand is often seen as siding with major powers on climate issues, for instance negotiating in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process as part of the Umbrella Group (together with the United States, Australia, Japan and others) and adopting positions that are not aligned with the Group of 77, the Least-Developed Country Group or the Alliance of Small Island States, to which Pacific countries belong. To the extent that the Coalition government is perceived as less environmentally friendly than its predecessors, this will risk further damage to New Zealand’s reputation among Pacific countries.

Another topic of sensitivity concerns relations between Pacific countries and China. New Zealand’s National Security Strategy 2023–2028 characterises China’s development cooperation as ‘a key lever to achieve its long-term ambitions in the Pacific’ and refers to China’s involvement in developing ports and airports as raising the possibility that they ‘become dual-use facilities (serving both civilian and military purposes) or fully fledged military bases in the future, which would fundamentally alter the strategic balance in the region’.26 Whatever the truth of such analysis, these statements minimise the legitimate interests and agency of Pacific countries in seeking to upgrade crucial aspects of their development infrastructure.

Recasting relations

As argued above, geostrategic competition has destabilised relationships in the Pacific region while distracting from the Pacific countries’ own plans and priorities. However, this moment can provide opportunities for New Zealand to choose a different path that builds on New Zealand’s existing strengths when engaging with Pacific nations. Humility will be required to enable recognition that gaining a deeper understanding of the Pacific requires developing further intellectual, expert and cultural capacities at home. In this connection, existing social networks and traditional knowledge in the tangata Pasifika diaspora offer vital keys that can be leveraged to build stronger relationships with Pacific countries.

Recasting relations within the Pacific region means recognising that not all countries in the region have the same needs and interests. This also requires acknowledging that New Zealand has its own national interests, which will not always coincide with those of Pacific countries. A more honest and open conversation about New Zealand’s difficulties in managing its relationships with other external actors — including Australia, the United States and China — will go a long way towards establishing greater trust with Pacific countries in the long term.

New Zealand should continue making positive contributions to regional security, as defined by Pacific countries in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and other key documents. Crucially, these contributions need to be balanced across the different types of security, with a particular focus on climate and health, in addition to humanitarian assistance and

disaster relief, transnational crime, maritime security operations and more traditional areas of defence and policing.

New Zealand could play an important role in fostering collaboration between academic institutions and other civil society organisations in New Zealand and the wider region. It could, for example, develop shared academic and research programmes with educational institutions such as the University of the South Pacific; propose the addition of Track II platforms to existing regional mechanisms, such as the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting; create partnerships to train defence, security and diplomatic personnel in Pacific countries; and develop a cadre of tangata Pasifika experts in New Zealand whom Pacific countries can call upon to advise on security issues, broadly understood. A longer-term goal would be to work towards a regular, multi-track dialogue that includes diplomats, academics, security experts, think tanks and business leaders from a range of Pacific countries and external actors.

Review support

New Zealand should continue to support the review of the PIF’s mechanisms for engaging with external actors while carefully calibrating its own attitudes to such actors. For example, instead of confronting any and all Chinese influence in the region, New Zealand could acknowledge that Pacific countries have reasonable interests in entering into arrangements with China to address development and security concerns. Doing so would not mean ignoring the potentially disruptive effects of heightened geopolitical competition in the region, nor would it entail any weakening of commitment to the ‘Blue Pacific Principles’ for engagement. Rather, it would mean greater selectivity when deciding when to oppose, when to disagree and when to cooperate with China. Adopting such an approach might serve to persuade Pacific countries that New Zealand places a high priority on aligning with their national interests and is not driven by a knee-jerk assumption that China’s motives are malign.

Finally, New Zealand should seek opportunities to proactively engage with issues of strategic salience to Pacific countries. This might involve offering or encouraging mediation between the French government and the Kanaky independence movement in New Caledonia, even if this might be unpopular with ‘traditional’ partners in the Pacific. More prosaically, it could include taking steps to review trade and labour agreements for the benefit of Pacific countries. Other possibilities include tangible demonstrations of support for ‘homegrown’ Pacific initiatives, such as the requests for advisory opinions on climate change issues from international judicial bodies and the effort to fix baselines under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In short, by centring the region’s own priorities — particularly climate, development and a broad conception of security — New Zealand will foster deeper trust with its Pacific neighbours and navigate the conflicting currents of Pacific geopolitics more effectively.

NOTES

1. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Action Plan to Implement the Boe Declaration on Regional Security (16 Aug 2019), p.6 (forumsec. org/sites/default/files/2024-03/BOE-document-Action-Plan.pdf).

Thanks to Kara Irwin for research assistance.

2. These are: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

3. See generally Greg Fry, Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism (Canberra, 2019), ch 9, 11.

4. See generally Graham Hassall, The United Nations and the Pacific Islands (Springer, 2023).

5. Alexandre Dayant et al, 2023 Key Findings Report, Lowy Institute, 31 Oct 2023, p.10 (pacificaidmap.lowyinstitute.org/Lowy-InstitutePacific-Aid-Map-Key-Findings-Report-2023.pdf).

6. Prianka Srinivasan and Virginia Harrison, ‘Mapped: the vast network of security deals spanning the Pacific, and what it means’, Guardian (London), 9 Jul 2024 (www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/ jul/09/pacific-islands-security-deals-australia-usa-china).

7. European Commission, ‘The EU Strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’, 16 Sep 2021, p.13 (www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/ files/jointcommunication_2021_24_1_en.pdf, acc 15 Aug 2024); CRIMARIO (Critical Maritime Routes Indo Pacific Project) II ‘Mission and Objectives’ (www.crimario.eu/mission-and-objectives/).

8. Dayant, p.4; Meg Keen, ‘Infrastructure for influence: Pacific Islands building spree’, 31 Oct 2023, The Interpreter (www.lowyinstitute. org/the-interpreter/infrastructure-influence-pacific-islands-buildingspree).

9. Dayant, p.5.

10. Ibid., pp.9–10.

11. PIFS, 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent (2022), p.6.

12. PIFS, Action Plan, op cit.

13. Meg Taylor, ‘Pacific-led Regionalism Undermined’, 25 Sep 2023, Asia Society Policy Institute (asiasociety.org/policy-institute/pacificled-regionalism-undermined).

14. PIFS, Fiftieth Pacific Islands Forum: Tuvalu, Forum Communiqué, 13–16 Aug 2019 (forumsec.org/publications/fiftieth-pacific-islandsforum-tuvalu-13-16-august-2019).

15. International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, ‘Xi expounds on China’s policy toward Pacific island countries’, 10 Jul 2023 (www.idcpc.gov.cn/english2023/ttxw_5749/202307/ t20230718_159301.html#:~:text=He%20pointed%20out%20 that%20China,all%20countries%2C%20big%20or%20small.).

16. White House, ‘Pacific Partnership Strategy of the United States’, Sep 2022 (whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PacificPartnership-Strategy.pdf), p.5.

17. White House, ‘Statement by Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States on the Establishment of the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP)’, 24 Jun 2022 (www.whitehouse. gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/24/statement-byaustralia-japan-new-zealand-the-united-kingdom-and-the-unitedstates-on-the-establishment-of-the-partners-in-the-blue-pacific-pbp/).

18. Taylor, op cit; Mathew Doidge ‘EU–Pacific Development Relations and the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent’ (2022), DIPLO Development Summaries 6 (ir.canterbury.ac.nz/items/e1c76602ddbc-4aa7-a34d-5139e42db981).

19. Greg Fry, Tarcisius Kabutaulaka and Terence Wesley-Smith, ‘“Partners in the Blue Pacific” initiative rides roughshod over established regional processes’, 5 Jul 2022, Dev Policy Blog (devpolicy.org/pbpinitiative-rides-roughshod-over-regional-processes-20220705/).

20. Daniel Hurst, ‘Pacific Islands Forum communique taken down after Chinese envoy calls Taiwan reference “unacceptable”’, 30 Aug 2024, Guardian (www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/30/pacif ic-islands-forum-communique-taken-down-after-chinese-envoycalls-taiwan-reference-unacceptable).

21. Taylor, op cit.

22. Christine Rovoi, ‘Experts warn of Pacific economic challenges if seasonal work schemes not carefully managed’, 22 May 2024, Pacific Media Network (pmn.co.nz/read/pacific-region/experts-warn-ofbrain-drain-issues-if-pacific-seasonal-work-schemes-not-carefullymanaged).

23. Daniel Hurst, ‘Here be nodules: will deep-sea mineral riches divide the Pacific family?’, Guardian, 10 Nov 2023 (www.theguardian.com/ environment/2023/nov/10/pacific-islands-forum-deep-sea-miningharm-risks).

24. See generally Anna Powles, ‘How Aotearoa New Zealand is Responding to Strategic Competition in the Pacific Islands Region’ (2023), Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs (repository.library. georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1084984).

25. Nanaia Mahuta, ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Engagement: Partnering for Resilience’, speech, 3 Nov 2021 (www.beehive.govt. nz/speech/aotearoa-new%C2%A0zealand%E2%80%99s-pacificengagement-partnering-resilience); Cabinet paper, ‘New Zealand’s Pacific Engagement: From Reset to Resilience’, 11 Nov 2021, CAB21-MIN-0401 (www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/Cabinet-papers/Cab-PaperNZ-Pacific-Engagement-From-Reset-to-Resilience.pdf).

26. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, ‘Secure Together Tō Tātou Korowai Manaaki New Zealand’s National Security Strategy 2023–2028’ (4 Aug 2023) (www.dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/ files/2023-11/national-security-strategy-aug2023.pdf) p.40.

Asking the right questions

Andrew Wierzbicki reflects on the challenges and misconceptions involved in crafting New Zealand’s defence policy.

Far from being simple, formulating New Zealand’s defence policy is a complex exercise today. When making decisions about how to secure the country and its trade, the government must weigh a range of factors. Finding the right balance is critical, whether it concerns funding, equipment or staffing of the forces or having the right mix of capability to meet both domestic requirements and international requests for assistance. The challenges include sensitivity around language on defence and security and the multiple stakeholders and audiences involved, time horizons and the problem of long-term planning, funding and the tension between expectations and reality.

This article is not specifically a review of New Zealand’s current defence policy but rather a look at some of the issues which typically influence the development of the policy. I will be drawing on my eighteen years working on defence policy in the Ministry of Defence, where I finished in November 2016. The views expressed are my personal views. They are not those of any government agency; nor are they that of the NZIIA, which does not itself express any views on issues but rather provides a platform for its members to be exposed to a range of issues which affect New Zealand’s international relations.

I will consider three perspectives:

l the context for New Zealand defence policy;

l some of the challenges faced when crafting the policy;

l some misconceptions that exist about New Zealand defence policy.

New Zealand governments fairly regularly publicly release statements of their defence policy. The last one was on 4 August 2023 by the Labour-led government when the then minister of defence, Andrew Little, released the Defence Policy and Strategy Statement, along with a second document, the Future Force Design Principles. The latter complements the strategy statement by discussing the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF)’s capability requirements in order to respond to the challenges set out in the statement.

In a welcome development, for the first time the Defence statement was part of a suite of security related documents comprising:

Andrew Wierzbicki is an NZIIA Board member. This article is the edited text of addresses he gave to the NZIIA’s Auckland and Wellington branches on 1 and 28 August respectively.

l the National Security Strategy 2023–2028, the first such report, also released on 4 August 2023 by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet;

l New Zealand’s Security Threat Environment 2023, also the first such report, released by the Security Intelligence Service on 11 August 2023; and

l the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment — Navigating a Shifting World, which is a document projecting out to 2035, released on 10 July 2023.

Later in 2024, a third defence-related document, the Capability Plan, is to be released. This will outline those defence capabilities which the government is committing to providing to the

p Army personnel repair a building following the volcanic eruption in Tonga (NZDF)

NZDF as the means for delivering on its defence policy. The plan’s release will also be an opportunity for Minister of Defence Judith Collins to indicate any change in direction in defence policy of the National-led government from the 2023 Defence statement.

Key advantage

While preparation of the plan started before the October 2023 change of government, a key advantage in New Zealand is that, while governments of different political parties may change emphasis and nuances, New Zealand’s overall defence policy tends to be bipartisan. I am assuming, therefore, that the essential elements of our current defence policy will not be significantly altered. Whether this situation changes in the future, though, because of AUKUS Pillar 2 remains to be seen. Recent debate on this issue suggests there are pronounced views developing on the merits or otherwise of New Zealand being associated with Pillar 2, if indeed this is the direction the government decides to go in once it considers the outcome of officials’ current information gathering exercise.

Collins outlined some of the government’s priorities on 10 May as a pre-budget announcement. A key area of concern, as it was for the previous government, is dealing with NZDF attrition, something I come back to below.

Whichever government is formulating defence policy, the messaging is neither simple nor straightforward. In my experience, having been involved in this process several times as a Defence official, this is the key challenge for any administration. But it is not the only challenge. I will discuss four of these challenges:

l the sensitivity around language on defence and security and the multiple stakeholders and audiences involved; l time horizons and the challenge of long-term planning; l funding;

l the tension between expectations and reality.

Major challenge

In messaging a defence policy, the language used is important because it must encompass both domestic and overseas audiences. The wording discloses how the government perceives the security environment and what, as a consequence, it intends to do, especially concerning future NZDF capabilities. Until 2023 a broader context for such decisions was lacking. This has now been remedied with the development of a national security strategy.

Some wording is easier to formulate than others. For example, there is agreement by all that the NZDF needs the capability to undertake search and rescue in New Zealand’s area of responsibility in the South Pacific and that our only ally Australia is our closest defence partner. Similarly, there is no disagreement that New Zealand needs appropriate NZDF capabilities to respond to requests for assistance from our Pacific Islands neighbours, especially as a result of natural calamities such as extreme weather events or volcanic eruptions like that of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai in 2022.

Notwithstanding the clarity around these, however, they are but three aspects of a much broader and deeper policy environment. The 2023 suite of security statements clearly emphasised that this is just one component of a broader policy mix determining both domestic national security and foreign policy. Whatever the government says about its defence policy, therefore, is carefully scrutinised both within New Zealand and especially externally. This means there is always a quite lengthy process

of fine-tuning the wording in order to not only provide the right nuances but also perhaps to send particular messages, maybe directly or in some instances in more calibrated language. This will reflect the collective decision-making of the government, beginning with officials and finishing with ministers.

At the officials’ level, aside from the Ministry of Defence, which is the lead agency on defence policy, other agencies have an interest in what is said about New Zealand’s defence policy. These include the Defence Force, Foreign Ministry and Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to name but three. This is only the beginning, however, because the process is mirrored in Cabinet discussions. Here agencies’ respective ministers also have their input and make the final decisions on defence policy and how it is messaged. In my view, classic examples of recent deliberate messaging by the government have been the changes in the tone of the language concerning China and Russia.

Positive messaging

In the 2016 Defence White Paper, the last with which I was involved, the messaging on China was positive, highlighting cooperation between New Zealand and China — wording that I would characterise as safe. Fast forward to 2023 and the Defence statement refers to the Chinese government’s ‘assertive pursuit of its strategic objectives’ and China ‘using all its instruments of national power in ways that can pose challenges to existing international rules and norms’. That this wording was carefully calibrated is borne out by the very similar wording in the Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment, the National Security Strategy and the Security Threat Environment documents as well as the Ministry of Defence’s 2024–2028 Statement of Intent, released on 27 August 2024. None of this is a coincidence. Similarly, the messaging on Russia moved from the cautious in 2016 where the Defence White Paper talked of ‘Russia’s intervention in Ukraine’ to the 2023 wording, where it had become ‘Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine’. A similar evolution of messaging over the last eight years has occurred on other emerging security challenges. Two of particular note are climate change and cyber-security.

Talking about the present is, however, a far more straightforward exercise than trying to predict the medium- to long-term strategic environment. In Defence (both force and ministry) this is a necessity when trying to determine the capabilities — people, equipment and skills — that the NZDF is likely to need to deal with future contingencies. This leads me on to the second challenge. As mentioned above, there are known tasks which the NZDF will always be expected to perform, such as providing assistance within New Zealand at times of national emergencies and for which the appropriate planning for refreshing capabilities can be undertaken. There are, however, other tasks, especially those arising externally — future events rather than present ones — for which planning is more problematic. Thus, trying to understand what is going to happen in the next five, ten and twenty years is important when deciding on the NZDF’s future structure and capabilities. As one experienced British commentator has put it, ‘Defence policy tries to anticipate the future threats which might alter the national and international security landscape, but is often confounded’.

Implementation delay

Changing structure and capabilities must be done with the longterm future in mind — it simply does not happen overnight. For example, a government decision that the army needs to be up-

skilled to take on a new task could take several years to implement. It would involve finding and training the necessary personnel and providing the required dedicated infrastructure; and if specialised equipment is required, possibly joining a queue to get it from what is likely to be, at best, only a handful of possible suppliers. In many cases, though, there will be only one realistic supplier, which adds all sorts of difficult complications, not the least being getting the equipment at a competitive price.

The challenge, then, is to reach conclusions about the security environment which are not only balanced but also as realistic as possible. Navigating the complexities of trying to predict what might happen is part of this process. Suffice it is to say that Defence uses a number of established tools to work through the range of possible future scenarios. Scenario planning in Defence is no different from the private sector’s approach to thinking about future directions. Shell Oil’s response to the 1970s oil shocks is a classic example of this at work.

This is not, however, an exact science, as the Russo-Ukraine War demonstrates. Ten years ago, no-one predicted Europe’s security would again be threatened by a conflict as serious as that presently taking place on that continent. Nor could it have been foreseen that, as a result of the conflict, two of the staunchest independent minded nations on that continent, Sweden and Finland, would join NATO. Similarly, there was no planning in New Zealand to again be involved in a European conflict. Fast forward to 2024 and New Zealand is one of a broad array of nations assisting Ukrainians fight Russia’s aggression. Our contribution includes a NZDF role, training Ukrainian troops in the United Kingdom.

The Ukrainian conflict has also highlighted how quickly technology can change military tactics. I refer particularly to the critical role which drones have come to play in that war. The use of drones in the civilian context is now well established, but the Russo-Ukraine War has underscored their military application. The NZDF will be carefully assessing the lessons of the conflict and what they mean for New Zealand, including the affordability of the emerging technology. It will be interesting to see what the Capability Plan says about this.

Defence funding

The third challenge is funding for defence, specifically how much is the right amount for New Zealand to spend. The budget currently hovers at around $5 billion, approximately 1 per cent of GDP. This minimal expenditure reflects a New Zealand reality — defence is not what can be called a tier-priority for government expenditure. It is always eclipsed by the higher priority sectors of health, education, welfare and law and order. Politically, these have far more resonance with New Zealand voters than defence, which is competing with the other policy areas for the remaining expenditure.

Since the Second World War New Zealanders simply have not seen themselves as in any way pressured or threatened in a manner that demands significantly more defence funding on a par with what European nations are now spending because of the serious threat posed by Russia. But the security environment is the most unstable it has been for a significant period of time. Aside from Europe, other key areas of instability include the South China Sea, the Korean peninsula and the Middle East, all of direct interest to New Zealand, especially from a trade perspective.

New Zealand may not, therefore, be immune from having to consider spending more on defence. Aside from our own needs there are our partners’ expectations that we are ‘pulling

our weight’, not a new issue as it was always in the background during my time in the Defence Ministry. In what may well be a nod to this inevitability, when in Washington DC in July 2024 for a NATO meeting, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon reiterated a statement he had earlier made in New Zealand that he would like to double defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP. If this eventuated, it would bring New Zealand much closer to its one ally, Australia, where defence expenditure currently sits at just over 2 per cent of GDP. For geopolitical, alliance and domestic reasons, however, defence figures so much more prominently in the Australian consciousness, which is consequently reflected in that country’s much higher level of defence expenditure.

An increase of this magnitude is easier said than done. To achieve it, the government would have to find another $5 billion or so. Notwithstanding Luxon’s view, it will likely be difficult to get ready acceptance for any increased funding, particularly at a time of severe budgetary constraint. This is not helped by New Zealand lacking meaningful political, public or commercial defence constituencies to pressure governments to spend more on defence.

In the political sphere there are very few of New Zealand’s 120 members of Parliament whose re-election can be meaningfully influenced by a defence-related vote because there are only nine NZDF locations in New Zealand:

l the three Army camps in the Hutt Valley, Palmerston North and Christchurch;

l the three air force bases in West Auckland, the central North Island and the top of the South Island;

l the navy base at Devonport;

l the Wellington City and Hutt Valley NZDF facilities.

Muted voice

In Parliament, the defence voice, if it can be described as that, is these days very muted. Only five of the current MPs have had a military background, all from the National Party (though in the last Parliament it was four National and one Labour). Two of these five MPs are ministers with one of them also being the associate minister of defence. This severely constrains their ability to publicly express views inconsistent with government policy. Of the other three MPs, two sit on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee, where examination of defence issues does occur, albeit to a limited extent. The committee’s membership also includes a former Labour defence minister.

For most of the public who are not associated with any of the nine NZDF locations, their only real exposure to defence is Anzac Day or publicity around a NZDF deployment, whether domestically for a national emergency or overseas. For the rest of the time defence would barely figure in their thinking. Underscoring this is the difficulty I recall in getting the public to engage with the defence assessment process when their views were being sought.

Unlike Australia, neither is there a significant defence-related commercial presence in New Zealand which can exercise any noticeable influence on defence policy. To be sure, there are small niche pockets of defence business but nothing to compare with the significant Australian businesses, which, for example, make army vehicles or maintain army, navy and air force capabilities at the numerous large bases around Australia.

This lack of consciousness has, in my view, contributed to defence funding long being tightly constrained. Every dollar spent, therefore, needs to give Defence the best bang for the buck, to use an apt colloquialism. How this plays out can be seen in defence decisions of previous governments. For exam-

ple, the National-led government in 1999 decided not to buy a third Anzac frigate because of the cost. Similarly, in the early 2000s, the Labour-led government decided to do away with the air combat force because of the cost of buying and sustaining replacement fighters for the 1960s era Skyhawks which the RNZAF was then flying.

Expenditure pressure

The pressure is always on to get real value for money. The problem is that nothing defence-related is cheap, exacerbated by the rapid leaps in technological complexity and resultant skyrocketing cost of defence equipment. One ship or a small number of aircraft or a fleet of army vehicles, for example, can cost well into nine figures. Trying to get fixed, firm reliable costings for the government so it can make informed decisions about what to buy, when and from which manufacturer has always been challenging. It is even more so now given the requirement on Defence to provide, rightly in my view, whole of life costs. This means Defence needs to estimate the total cost over the 20–30 years’ life of a capability, beginning with the initial procurement cost of the equipment, through to ensuring for the life of the equipment that there is on-going support to keep it current, and to having a constant pipeline of trained personnel to run the equipment over its life.

The fourth challenge is the tension between expectations, on the one hand, and reality, on the other. It is one thing to identify an unstable and unpredictable strategic environment and the demands this could place on New Zealand but, as earlier discussed, it is another thing for governments of today to ensure they have appropriately structured the Defence Force to give governments of tomorrow options and choices when considering potential New Zealand responses to meet future demands. For example, it may be clear that New Zealand needs plenty of airlift capability such as Hercules aircraft, of which a new fleet of the latest J model has now started to arrive. One needs only to recall the pivotal role its predecessor, the 1960s era H model, played in the evacuations from Noumea in June 2024 or in the aftermath of the Kaikoura earthquake in 2016. But the cost of procuring and operating these aircraft was always going to dictate that we could only afford five replacement aircraft. As a consequence, allowing for maintenance, personnel shortages and competing activities, there will inevitably be occasions when the RNZAF will not be able to meet government expectations at a particular time, which will be hard to explain to ministers.

Obsolete aircraft

Similarly, few would dispute the undoubted advantage of using the RNZAF’s larger Boeing 757 transport aircraft for prime ministerial trade missions and other government missions, aside from its primary military transport role. The only trouble is that these aircraft are now well past their use by date and are subject to more frequent maintenance issues, invariably just as they are required for a mission. Notwithstanding the negative publicity which results when the 757s are unavailable, there is still seemingly minimal appetite either among the public or the politicians to spend several hundred million dollars on replacement aircraft for them, especially at a time when the government’s priorities are elsewhere. It will be very interesting, therefore, to see whether the government’s Capability Plan provides for replacing the 757s. If not, avoiding the capital expenditure now simply means paying even more in the future when replacements can no longer be delayed. In the meantime, the cost of maintaining

the 757s will keep on increasing.

All the equipment in the world is useless, however, if there are not the personnel to run it. As has been well publicised in recent times, the high NZDF attrition rate has been and still is a huge problem. Both the previous and current governments have had to find significant funding to try to stem the high attrition rates. Until this problem is resolved some of the capabilities the government thinks it has do not in fact have the required personnel to operate them. For example, in October 2023 the RNZN’s two offshore patrol vessels and one of the inshore patrol vessels were tied up for lack of crew.

These then are four of the challenges which face governments when formulating their defence policy. But while these can be overcome if the will is there, it is a different story trying to deal with what I would call misconceptions about New Zealand’s approach to defence because of the deep-seated views held by those advancing the misconceptions. Three of these warrant mentioning.

Significant misconception

There is a misconception that internationally New Zealand’s defence policy does not matter. The short response to this is that it does matter. Certainly, New Zealand is a small island nation in the South Pacific, which is not currently directly threatened by, nor definitely a threat to, anyone. But these ignore other realities.

First, there is New Zealand’s geographic isolation, or the tyranny of distance, as it is sometimes labelled. This is a major weak link because New Zealand relies for its economic prosperity on being able to trade and to do that successfully New Zealand’s exports and imports need to be able to move freely around the globe. Currently, two key areas for shipping goods from and to New Zealand are major flashpoints — the South China Sea and the Suez Canal. This means New Zealand has a direct strategic interest in the effects of the instability in these areas, aside from any other considerations. That interest carries obligations, which include contributing to the security of our trade routes whether through multilateral, bilateral or ad hoc arrangements.

We cannot reasonably expect others to shoulder the burden of maintaining this security without also making a meaningful and credible contribution to it ourselves as well. It is about New Zealand accepting an appropriate level of this burden if it is to be taken seriously.

New Zealand’s geographic location also means that it is looked to not only by our Pacific Islands neighbours but also our partners generally to be a key source of assistance when this is required by Pacific Islands nations. That assistance will invariably require personnel, equipment and logistics, which only an appropriately structured and equipped Defence Force can provide.

The second reality is that New Zealand is a strong proponent of the rules-based international system and especially one of its key pillars, the United Nations. While not the only way in which New Zealand underlines its commitment to the rules-based international order, the NZDF provides a means by which successive governments have been able to demonstrate this in a meaningful way through contributing NZDF personnel to peacekeeping or other missions. New Zealand is highly respected and valued in this regard because of the quality and integrity of its NZDF personnel. If New Zealand did not have the NZDF assets to make these contributions, we would not be pulling our weight internationally.

Relationship expectations

The third reality is that New Zealand has a range of relationships. These can include expectations of military contribution. The most important of these is the commitment we have to our only ally, Australia. It has been a long-standing fundamental of New Zealand defence policy that if ever Australia was threatened, we would come to its aid, and vice versa. It goes without saying that the aid would need to include the ability to assist Australia in an armed response if that was required. That is why Australia pays close attention to New Zealand’s defence policy and we to theirs. While once we could have described our part of the world as a ‘benign strategic environment’, this is no longer the case.

l There is a misconception that New Zealand’s defence can be got on the cheap. It cannot. Defence is complex and multi-faceted and requires the proper level of investment to constantly sustain it.

l It is about people, that is, having the right ones when needed, in the numbers that are needed and properly trained. Reference has already been made to the serious staffing problems the NZDF is currently facing. Even if all the gaps could be filled today, the problem would not be solved overnight because training new recruits to the standards required can take months if not years.

l It is about these people having access to the right capabilities to do the jobs the government expects of them, whether it is in having the basic equipment such as vehicles for the Army, ships for the RNZN or aircraft for the RNZAF, or in having the required highly specialised and technical equipment such as information technology and communications systems. The real challenge, as noted above, is trying to properly equip the NZDF but within the very constrained defence budgets which have been a feature of successive governments.

l There are the infrastructure requirements such as housing and working facilities for NZDF personnel, structures for storage and maintenance and specialised infrastructure such as runways for aircraft, wharves for ships and firing ranges for the Army.

l All of this means New Zealand needs to be spending sufficient on defence to maintain a credible Defence Force which can meaningfully and realistically protect and advance our own interests. We cannot expect others to do this for us.

Peacekeeping misconception

There is the misconception that the NZDF should only be

trained to do peacekeeping. Those who advocate for this position do it either:

l from a philosophical point of view, that is, they do not want New Zealand troops doing anything more than in effect being boots on the ground and, therefore, do not want New Zealand defence personnel trained for combat; and/or l they see it as a way of making defence less expensive, leaving more money for other priorities. Some of these advocates also suggest that New Zealand would be better off adopting a policy of neutrality or associating itself with countries claiming to be non-aligned to any particular geopolitical grouping.

In my view, these positions are illusory. The reality is that what I would call benign peacekeeping is very rarely that. More often than not, it also encompasses the much riskier peacemaking role. This requires that NZDF personnel are trained and equipped to a level where they can properly defend themselves and enforce the peace for which they have been deployed. This means, in effect, training personnel in combat skills. It also means they need to have appropriate personal equipment, such as arms and body protection, as well as other essentials, including ground transport, both conventional and specialised, such as armoured vehicles and communications equipment. One needs only to recall the East Timor and Afghanistan deployments to see how important all of this is. None of this is cheap, so it is not a realistic way to cut defence funding.

A policy of neutrality, far from being a simple policy option or a cheaper way for New Zealand, is a much more complex and expensive alternative. One needs only to look at two European countries, Switzerland and Sweden, in this regard. Aside from New Zealand having a completely different geopolitical, historical, cultural and economic history to these countries, neutrality carries with it the need to have a self-defence capability which is seen by others, especially those who might threaten New Zealand, as a realistic deterrent with all the costs and complications this entails.

Formulating defence policy presents New Zealand governments with a range of complexities. The policy cannot be conceived in a silo, whether domestically or externally, nor is it. It reflects a whole of government approach. Defence policy is inextricably linked not only with New Zealand’s foreign and trade policies but also with domestic policy. It reflects who we are as a country — a Western liberal democracy working with likeminded partners internationally.

Defence policy needs to deal with the here and now but it also needs to deal with the future. There is the difficult task of projecting what the future security environment may look like so this can be taken into account in how the NZDF is configured to meet contingencies that could arise then. It is that configuration which will always be the subject of debate:

l Has the government got it right?

l Has the government spent enough to get it right?

l What other options are there?

l Will the public buy into the decisions which have been made?

l Will New Zealand’s international partners buy into the decisions which have been made?

These are some of the questions which always arise.

NOTE

1. Richard Dannatt, Boots on the Ground, Britain and her Army Since 1945 (London, 2016). Lord Dannatt is a former UK chief of the general staff.

HMNZS Aotearoa delivers aid to Tonga after the volcanic eruption and tsunami on 14 January 2021

NZDF

Fostering better understanding

Winston Peters outlines a crucial need in advancing New Zealand’s relationship with Asia.

New Zealand is an Indo-Pacific country. This is its identity, and this is where its future lies. With every forecast about Asia’s trajectory, this becomes clearer and clearer. As New Zealand navigates its own pathway forward, there is a pressing need to understand Asia. If it does not, its relationships will inevitably be characterised by misconceptions, bias and miscalculation. Given the importance of Asia to New Zealand’s future prosperity, a better understanding of the vast range of cultures, languages and peoples of the region is now essential. In this situation the Asia New Zealand Foundation has played a very important role.

A lot has happened over the past 30 years — in New Zealand, in Asia and indeed in New Zealand’s engagement with Asia. It is, of course, difficult to talk about Asia in general terms. The region has 23 countries, hundreds of languages and a vast swathe of peoples and cultures and political systems. This is to say nothing of the vast distances in Asia. Indeed, it is closer from London to Moscow than Auckland to Jakarta, and yet we tend to think of Indonesia as our back yard. We tend to zone in on one country, or one issue.

Our understanding needs to be more nuanced than this — something the Asia New Zealand Foundation knows well and is in fact its core mission. We can, however, look at some trends, as we think about New Zealand’s relationship with Asia over the past 30 years. In 1994, for example, Asia’s population was over three billion people. The region accounted for one-quarter of the world’s GDP, and economic growth was underway in many countries. The region had experienced years of peace and stability, albeit with some notable exceptions. Many parts of the region were at the start of a long, although sometimes uneven, path of rising urbanisation, productivity and incomes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters MP is New Zealand’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. This article is the edited text of a speech he gave to the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s 30th anniversary ‘Asia Summit’ in Parliament’s Legislative Council Chamber on 15 October 2024.

In New Zealand, our population had just tipped over three million. Asian countries had become important trading partners — this was twenty years after Britain joined the European Economic Community and forced us to look beyond our traditional trading partners. We had adapted by looking closer to home. Thirty-five per cent of New Zealand’s exports went to Asia, with Japan accounting for close to half of this. Remarkably, at that time China took just 2 per cent of our exports, compared to 20 per cent today.

Many New Zealanders had come to realise the importance of Asia to our future prosperity. Along with this came a recognition that we needed to better understand the vast range of cultures, languages and peoples of the region. This would be a shift for us. Just 3 per cent of New Zealanders at the time identified as being of Asian origin — compared to 17 per cent today. We had the beginnings of some cultural and culinary influences, with tourist and student exchanges gaining pace. Under the Colombo Plan, we had welcomed many Asian students to New Zealand. But for the most part, these cultural influences

p Winston Peters addresses the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s 30th anniversary summit

were not mainstream or well-understood at the time. It was in this context that the Asia New Zealand Foundation was born and began its important work.

What has changed in Asia? Even those who were aficionados back in 1994 might have been surprised at just how important Asia would become to New Zealand. The Asian financial crisis in 1997 was devastating to the region. It was an unsettled and unpredictable time. But the region has recovered, and in fact boomed. The figures are certainly impressive. More than one billion people have been lifted out of poverty in Asia since 1990. Asia now comprises over 40 per cent of the world’s GDP. In the next quarter-century, this is forecast to reach 50 per cent. It is important for us to remember that there has not been just one linear trajectory in the region. Each country has had its own path, and these paths can have different twists and turns over time.

Extraordinary growth

China’s growth story is, of course, well-known, but the statistics remain extraordinary. Today, China stands as the world’s secondlargest economy worth nearly US$18 trillion in 2023, soaring a staggering 4000 per cent since the 1990s. This is not, however, just a China story. There has been astonishing success in other

countries, too. India overtook China to become the most populous country in the world in 2023, and with 900 million registered voters it is also the world’s largest democracy. In 2024 India’s economy was the fastest growing in the G20, and it is expected to overtake Germany and Japan to become the world’s third largest economy in the next few years.

India’s advances in science, technology, education and space are inspiring to many countries around the world. In short, India has become a significant global actor playing a key role in securing a stable and prosperous region. Japan itself continues to be an economic powerhouse. We must also recognise that ASEAN’s growth, after starting down the path of economic integration, has been remarkable. If ASEAN today were one economy, it would be New Zealand’s fourth largest trading partner. Its countries are growing at an impressive clip — more than 5 per cent year in, year out. The total GDP of ASEAN reached nearly US$4 trillion last year, positioning it as the fifth largest economy in the world. Projections indicate that ASEAN’s GDP is poised to reach an estimated US$4.5 trillion by the year 2030. This will propel ASEAN to become the world’s fourth largest economy by 2040.

Much of Asia’s economic growth has been built on trade and manufacturing. But the region is now also central across many facets of the modern economy — from finance and capital, to people and to innovation. To take just two examples, Asia’s services trade is growing 1.7 times faster than that of the rest of the world. And by 2030, Asia’s fintech revenues are expected to be larger even than that of North America.

We know economic growth does not happen in a vacuum. It is regional security that has provided the foundation for the significant rise in living standards we have witnessed across Asia. In this time of global upheaval and challenges to the rules-based order, the role of regional security in our collective economic security is undeniable. In South-east Asia, ASEAN centrality is playing a pivotal role. ASEAN has led the way in bringing the region together in peaceful dialogue. This includes initiatives like the Regional Forum we attended in July or the East Asia Summit last October.

Security challenges

Notwithstanding the various peaceful offramps that exist, Asia has had, and continues to have, security challenges. The liberal rules-based order is under strain. As China’s power and influence have increased, so, too, have the areas of difference that we have had to navigate. We are seeing a rising and more active India. And we should not forget that Russia considers itself an Indo-Pacific power also.

Added to this are hemispheric wild cards: North Korea; other nuclear powers; arms build-up; and alliance and proxy relationships. We also have population trends that will have not just economic but also geostrategic consequences. Also, fierce competition for resources: protein and commodities like rare

Winston Peters meets with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on 18 July 2024 JAPANESE CABINET

The president of India, Droupadi Murmu (fourth from right), visits the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in front of Wellington Railway Station in August 2024

metals. Finally, environmental challenges, which are an existential threat for many countries in the region, are exacerbating all these factors.

For New Zealand, the message is clear: we need to continue to understand and engage with Asia. The Coalition government, via the Foreign Policy Reset, is focused on building and advancing relationships in a way that responds more actively to the region’s opportunities and risks. The work of the Asia New Zealand Foundation remains as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. Understanding Asia starts here at home. The past 30 years has seen a boom, and our ethnic communities have grown significantly.

While there is still some way to go, we have started to see Asian New Zealanders in leadership roles — from members of Parliament to business leaders, sports people and entertainers. Along with this has come a richness of culture and language. Kiwis have enjoyed new festivities and embraced an array of Asian cuisine, at home and at restaurants — something rarely available 30 years ago. The top 25 languages spoken in New Zealand include many Asian languages, such as Mandarin, with nearly 100,000 speakers, as well as Hindi with almost 70,000, Cantonese, Tagalog, Punjabi, Korean, Japanese, Gujarati and Tamil. We celebrate Diwali, Lunar New Year and Eid festivals that showcase cultural traditions to New Zealanders.

In 2023, 54,000 students from Asian countries came to study in New Zealand education institutions. During 2024 we welcomed over 700,000 international visitors from Asia — nearly double that of the previous year — and we are looking forward to seeing this growth continue over the coming years as the pandemic fall-out recedes. Over the last 70 years, we have provided scholarships and training to 21 countries from the Asian region under our International Development Cooperation programme. This remains a foundation of our enduring peopleto-people connections.

Changed attitudes

Thanks to the Asia New Zealand Foundation, we have some tangible evidence of how New Zealanders’ attitudes toward Asia have changed over time. The first Perceptions of Asia survey was conducted in 1997 and showed that New Zealanders saw Asia as something largely external. Today, however, over half of New Zealanders feel a connection to Asia in their daily lives, with more than a third regularly enjoying Asia-related entertainment.

Over the past decade, public awareness and engagement

with Asia has grown significantly. In 2013, one-third of New Zealanders said they felt knowledgeable about Asia. That number has now risen to an all-time high, with nearly 60 per cent saying they possess at least a fair amount of understanding about the region. This is wonderful and thanks in no small part to the work of the foundation. We hope we will see this familiarity grow further in the coming years.

Alongside these developments in New Zealand, we have been engaging both with Asia and also in Asia. Today you can fly direct from Auckland and Christchurch to fourteen destinations across Asia, connecting New Zealand to the region and providing opportunities for New Zealanders to interact with and learn about Asia. Kiwis have been broadening their traditional ‘OE’ and heading to Asia. As just one example, 3300 New Zealanders have travelled to Japan under the Japan Exchange and Teaching, or ‘JET’, programme since its inception, teaching English in Japan. Programmes such as the Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia have seen thousands of young New Zealanders study at Asian institutions and return with meaningful skills and experience. The Asia New Zealand Foundation has also contributed to this through the internships, grants and residencies it offers throughout Asia.

It is important to highlight that seven of our top ten export destinations are Asian economies. Exports to China amounted to $20 billion last year; Japan more than $4 billion. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia round out the list of our top export destinations in Asia. This has been supported by the network of free trade agreements we have negotiated to support our commercial partnerships over the past twenty years. It is notable that our second oldest free trade agreement is with Singapore — second only to Australia.

CPTPP origins

The origins of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of our most significant trade agreements, also finds its origins in our relationships with Asia. Its precursor, the P4 agreement with Singapore, Brunei and Chile in 2006, provided the foundation stone for what would become CPTPP. The agreement is itself a high watermark agreement that includes other economies from the region such as Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam, and we continue to encourage others who can meet the agreement’s high standards to seek to join in the future. All in all, 95 per cent of our trade with Asia takes place under a trade agreement. New Zealand has also invested in regional institutions. This architecture provides space for dialogue and the exchange of ideas on key issues impacting us. We were the second country to become an ASEAN dialogue

Winston Peters with Philippines’ President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr in June 2024

Jet programme participants being farewelled in Auckland before leaving for Japan in 2023

partner, and we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of this in 2025. In that time New Zealand has been a trusted partner to ASEAN and its member states.

We know that by contributing to ASEAN’s success, and the success of ASEAN-led councils like the East Asia Summit, we contribute to our own success and to that of the region. In 1994, New Zealand was a member of one regional body — APEC, which was founded just five years earlier. This platform gives us a venue to influence regional economic policy together with members that today make up two-thirds of global economic growth and take 80 per cent of New Zealand’s exports.

Just over ten years later, in 2005, our delegation was proud to take part in the inaugural East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur attended by then Prime Minister Helen Clark. We had put intensive effort into laying the groundwork for the shape of the grouping and New Zealand’s participation. Our membership as a founding partner made clear to all that New Zealand was part of the region and had a role to play in regional decisions.

The EAS is now the premier forum for strategic dialogue and regional co-operation. New Zealand is showing up today, as we did then, because we want to support peace and stability in the region in tangible ways. Recent years have seen the emergence of new plurilateral and ‘minilateral’ architecture alongside established multilateral architecture. New Zealand supports new groupings that advance and defend our interests and capabilities, and we see no reason why these cannot coexist as long as they are constructive, advanced in an open and transparent way and are respectful of ASEAN centrality.

Korea concerns

We have championed a stable, peaceful and nuclear-free Korean peninsula. In the current climate, it is not possible to visit North Korea. But in the past, we have. During a 2007 visit, we met with political leaders and advocated in favour of multi-party peace talks. To this day, New Zealand Defence Force assets and personnel are deployed in Korea to maintain the armistice. The Defence Force also has a separate deployment to monitor and deter North Korea’s evasion of UN sanctions.

In 2006, we received a request from East Timor, seeking assistance to restore stability and freedom of movement. We responded swiftly, deploying police and military troops. In a testament to our security co-operation in the region, Singaporean personnel were integrated seamlessly into a New Zealand battalion.

New Zealand has a long-standing development programme in Asia. It is our largest programme outside the Pacific and is growing. It goes beyond training and scholarships to respond

to the priorities of our ASEAN partners, as well as humanitarian assistance. In September, for example, we contributed humanitarian assistance in response to the devastating impacts of Typhoon Yagi in Vietnam and Myanmar and to extreme flooding in Bangladesh.

It is also worth noting that, for the past 30 years, New Zealand has advanced its policy towards Asia in a bipartisan way wherever possible. This has ensured successive governments can follow through on policy commitments and is one of our greatest strengths.

It is instructive to think about how far we have come in the past 30 years. But it is also clear that we need to do more. The world today is disordered and becoming more dangerous. As we said to the NZIIA in May, ‘the challenges we face are stark, the worst that anyone today working in politics or foreign affairs can remember’.

As MFAT’s own strategic assessment has identified, one of the drivers for this has been a shift from rules to power: the post-Cold War ‘unipolar’ moment is over. The multipolar world is here to stay, and states, large, middle and small, are all jostling to advance their interests. Added to this is the fact that global problems — whether health, environmental, demographic or migratory — present global risks, but at the same time require state-to-state co-operation to resolve.

We offer this simply to point out that we are living in a time where relationships, norms and rules — many of which have enabled the rise of countries in Asia, including those which seek to challenge those same rules — are changing at the very time when we need to maximise global co-operation. This is at the heart of what is happening in Asia, as well as around the world more broadly. This is why the government decided early in 2024 on a Foreign Policy Reset. A fundamental driver was that our foreign policy needs to reflect and respond to the challenging strategic context we find ourselves in.

Increased focus

We need to act now to bring more energy, ambition and engagement to our relationships. Under the Foreign Policy Reset, we have been explicit: we will be increasing the focus on and resources applied to South-east Asia, South Asia, especially India, and North Asia. This is what will have a major impact on our security and prosperity. We are already delivering on this. Since taking office we have travelled to 31 countries. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and other international-facing ministers have also been incredibly active.

We have taken forward concrete initiatives to demonstrate the importance and future trajectory of our partnerships. This ranges from co-operation with Japan on a hospital in Kiribati to a customs co-operation arrangement with India to advancing toward comprehensive strategic partnerships with ASEAN and South Korea.

New Zealand is an Indo-Pacific country. This is our identity, and we know this is where our future lies. With every forecast about Asia’s trajectory, this becomes clearer and clearer. It was this realisation that led to the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s birth 30 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Asia has evolved, and New Zealand’s relationship with Asian countries has evolved too, in some ways beyond recognition.

As we navigate our own pathway forward, we need to understand Asia. If we do not, our relationships will be characterised by misconceptions, bias and miscalculation. So, our work has really only just begun. New Zealand’s security and prosperity depends on us continuing it.

Suzannah Jessep, chief executive of the Asia New Zealand Foundation

Towards a new Chinese–Russian economic deal

Dmitry Shlapentokh

reflects on the outcome of recent discussions in Moscow.

During economic co-operation talks between Chinese and Russian officials last August, the use of barter in trade between their two countries was discussed. Traditionally seen as an attribute of primitive or under-developed societies lacking division of labour, barter represents an important step for China in the path of extricating it from the dollar-dominated world economy. As Western sanctions increase their pressure, continuing attempts to stop Chinese exports, as well as the general instability of Western capitalism, have induced the Chinese elite to search for alternatives. Barter cannot be traced and is out of control of the US financial institutions and Washington in general.

In August 2024 Chinese officials visited Russia where, among other things, they discussed economic co-operation between the two countries. The topics included increased Chinese investment in the Russian Far East, but of greatest note was discussion about the use of barter in mutual trade. This approach is important, not just for Russia but also for China because it might herald a transformation of Chinese society. Or at least it might provide an additional incentive for an already underway process — the slow departure from dollars and trade with the West as the major engine of economic development.

Barter is traditionally seen as an attribute of primitive or under-developed societies lacking division of labour. In Europe it prevailed during the early Middle Ages, when the economy was based on self-sufficiency. In these societies each segment, such as local village or peasant household, provided themselves with all that was needed for their existence. Barter also emerged in the event of economic/political breakdown at the time, when money lost its value. In all these cases, barter trade is seen as either a symbol of a peculiar disease or extraordinary situation or symbol of economic retardation.

These visions of barter are just a sign of a Western-centric and, in a way, Euclidian vision of the social/political and economic universe. In certain situations, barter could well protect the interests of the parties involved and play an important role in cementing geopolitical and economic alliances. In the case of China today, barter is an important step in the path of extricating it from the dollar-dominated world economy and, clearly, US domination. The attempt to use barter, together with crypto currencies and native yuan, will be placed in the context of the general dynamic of Chinese society in the last 40 to 50 years.

Ukrainian-born Dr Dmitry Shlapentokh is an associate professor in Indiana University South Bend’s Department of History.

Changing relationship

Following the Deng Xiaoping reforms in the aftermath of Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, China became open to the West, particularly the United States. The country attracted considerable investments and enriched itself by trade. Western companies, including American, were lured to China by the promise of cheap, disciplined labour and ability to sell Chinese products in the West. The trademark ‘Made in China’ became ubiquitous

in the United States. Some observers noted that the US companies were attracted to China by its seemingly bottomless market.

Even so, that is only a part of the story. For American companies and even more so Chinese companies, the US market also looked bottomless. And payments were drowned in US dollars, which seemed to be a stable currency with worldwide circulation. A considerable amount of them were invested in US debt, the famous Treasury bill, which had the reputation of being the most secure debt obligation, also easily sold. The reliance on foreign trade and use of the dollar as the major means of exchange sat alongside social-economic changes in post-Mao China. To be sure, the Chinese Communist Party/state maintains full control over the political/social life of society, pitilessly crushing any open revolt. The state also controls the ‘command heights of economy’, the major ‘means of production’. Still, private business was encouraged, and Deng proclaimed that to be ‘rich is glorious’. Today, the situation has undergone a visible change.

Notable shift

There have been several subterranean changes that people in Beijing have undoubtedly observed. It might be noted here that China’s millennia-long, self-centred culture prevents the people from being overwhelmed by American discourse and from accepting everything that the American elite proclaims without critical assessment. Wang Huning is a good example here. His book America against America (1991) was conceived in 1988, when he was an exchange scholar in the United States. He later became a member of the Chinese Communist Party Secretariat and Politburo Standing Committee, the highest Party body. In taking a critical view of the United States, he differed from scores of Soviet and East European intellectuals who were mesmerised by any utterance by members of the American political and intellectual elite. And the Chinese elite vision of American society has also been critical and undeceived by US propaganda.

The point here is that the US economy has been declining for the last 50 to 60 years. This is manifested not just in massive and apparently irreversible de-industrialisation, but also in rising national debt as well as persistent inflation, which is much higher than the official 2 per cent per annum. As a result, American consumers became relatively much poorer than they were a few decades ago. Stories about unaffordable healthcare and education have been circulating for a long time. Lately, observers have concluded that housing, even rented, especially

in big cities, has become increasingly out of reach of the lower middle class. In fact, the problems go much deeper. And an announcement by Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, is instructive. She stated that in the event of her election she would freeze food prices. This statement indicated that the price of this necessity has emerged as a problem not just for the poor, those who live on public assistance, but even for the lower middle class. The conclusion is clear: the United States is becoming poorer, not richer. In addition, the stock market could be a huge bubble, likely to burst for a variety of reasons. Second, the US Treasury bills and money deposited in US and indeed most Western banks are not safe. Obligations could be ignored, and money taken. And there are other signs of dramatic change.

The notion that private property was ‘sacred’ was the very foundation of capitalist society. It was made clear by none other than Karl Marx, the founder of modern socialism and, officially, the guiding light of present-day China, regardless of all Chinese specificities. And in the 19th century Marx was right. Private property was indeed sacred and political affiliation had no bearing on the rights of proprietors. An anecdote might be instructive here. It relates to the life of Alexander Herzen, the founder of Russian socialism. Escaping the wrath of Tsar Nicholas I, the harsh Russian ruler, Herzen emigrated to France, doing so without state permission. A wealthy man, he left behind a considerable estate and naturally wanted to retrieve his money. Herzen solicited the help of James de Rothschild, a member of the famous banking family. Rothschild promised to help, presumably for a fee. When he approached the tsar and asked why his client could not have his money, Nicholas responded that the reason was obvious: Herzen was a political dissident. As Herzen noted with an air of irony in his memoir, this answer quite surprised Rothschild. In his view, there were only two reasons for not giving a person his own money — failure to pay taxes or repay loans. Responding to the tsar’s answer, Rothschild suggested that ‘his majesty’ was possibly aware of his role in the European banking system and that if Herzen did not receive his money ‘his majesty’ would not be able to borrow anything from European banks. Nicholas surrendered: the money was released.

Alexander Herzen

Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on 21 August

Enduring principles

These principles apparently worked through most of European history, at least in the countries which regarded themselves as capitalist. Not so today. Property is not ‘sacred’ and its position depends on the political standing of the owner. Money will be returned to ‘good’ people but not ‘bad’, and it is Washington and Brussels that decide who is ‘bad’ or ‘good’. Recently, the West ‘froze’, or practically confiscated, $300 billion of Russia’s sovereign funds. And who would vouch for the safety of the money of other ‘bad’ chaps? China clearly is one of them. Who also could vouch that Washington would never attempt to ‘solve’ debt problems through a dollar devaluation? Europe might be little better, but not dramatically. Sanctions and embargoes on Chinese goods add to all the above-mentioned problems and underpin changes in Chinese planning.

An economy oriented to just Western markets is clearly fraught with problems. In addition, the increasing number of quite wealthy individuals who benefit from market arrangements and erosion of state control over ‘means of production’ is undermining the foundations of the CCP regime. Responding to the challenge, President Xi Jinping has increased Party/state control over private business. Increasing pressure on the economy and a peculiar Stalinist reaction, in its idiosyncratic Chinese version, are also quite possible. In any case, an element of economic/industrial and technological autarky is essential. Dollardenominated US Treasury bills are also losing their dominant position, increasingly overshadowed by gold. These changes will also have implications for China’s foreign policy. The Belt and Road Initiative continues to expand with an attempt being made to connect with the European market. But increasingly, there is a search for alternatives in other markets where the dollar/euro could be, if not ditched completely, less dominant. Russia is one of the countries.

The Russo-Ukraine War finally released China from the lingering fear of Russia siding with the West. While moving closer

to Moscow, mostly for geopolitical reasons, Beijing is not willing to ditch dollars completely. The process of disengagement will be as smooth as possible. For all of its problems with the United States and West in general, China does not want to end engagement, abruptly severing ties. Such a catastrophic scenario is hardly in Beijing’s interest. Consequently, many Chinese banks are not happy in dealing with Russia banks, especially in dollars, because of the threat of Western, mostly American, sanctions. This is leading some Russian observers to complain that China is not a true ally or that the pro-Western part of the Chinese elite is preventing Beijing from fully embracing Russia.

Alternatives search

Even so, as Western sanctions increase their pressure, continuing attempts to stop Chinese exports, as well as the general instability of Western capitalism, have induced the Chinese elite to search for alternatives. Beijing is increasing efforts to be less dependent on both Western markets and especially Western banking systems. And dealing with Russia could be a good option. Because its own options are quite limited, Moscow is desperate for trade with China. It would most likely prefer trade in dollars/euro, but also accepts yuan as an alternative. In fact, most Russian trade with China, where money is used, is conducted in yuan or rubles.

Bank transactions can be traced and those engaged in trade with Russia could be sanctioned. In this light, barter emerges as the most viable solution. It cannot be traced and is out of control of the US financial institutions and Washington in general. Barter is still a small fraction of China’s overall trade. Nonetheless, it might be a sign, together, of course, with other steps, of China slowly decoupling, at least partially, from the old domination of Western-oriented trade and market-oriented trends of the previous decade. It remains to be seen whether it will be the way China distances itself from the dangers that might derive from cataclysmic events in the West.

Proposed corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative

Returning to a fine tradition

Christopher Luxon outlines the Coalition government’s approach to foreign policy.

To achieve its economic and social goals at home, New Zealand must engage with the world. The changes being wrought in the global environment place greater pressure on New Zealand and Australia’s shared interests. The rules-based order is under stress. So, too, are regional orders, including the IndoPacific region, where military expansion and modernisation continue at a scale not seen in the region for more than half a century. And closer to home, climate change is a profound security threat. Apart from adjusting its foreign policy to these developing conditions generally, New Zealand seeks to strengthen its relationship with Australia.

My government is ambitious for New Zealand. By 2040 — the bicentenary of the signing of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi — I want New Zealanders to be living in one of the most successful small, advanced economies on the planet. We will know we have achieved that because we will have significantly improved the health and education outcomes of all New Zealanders. We will have surgically targeted inequality with our social investment approach and addressed the cycle of poverty that is holding back some of our communities. We will have lifted the productivity per hour of Kiwi workers and we will be well on the road to achieving Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050. But we will not get there by disengaging from the world. That is why my government is bringing more energy, more urgency and a sharper focus to our external engagement.

I intend to unpack our thinking by doing three things:

l First, highlight the changes being wrought in the world that place greater pressure on New Zealand and Australia’s shared interests.

l Second, outline New Zealand’s Foreign Policy Reset that responds to these changes.

l Finally, I will describe my government’s ambition for strengthening our enduring partnership with Australia.

New Zealand’s prosperity and security depends on our ability to understand and influence our strategic environment.

Rt Hon Christopher Luxon MP is prime minister of New Zealand. This article is the edited text of an address he gave at the Lowy Institute, Sydney on 15 August.

So, how do we see that environment? It is very apparent that our strategic outlook is deteriorating more rapidly than at any time in our lifetimes. Tectonic shifts are unfolding in the global distribution of power, economic heft and strategic influence. Old assumptions are being upended. New Zealanders sometimes perceive themselves as buffered by splendid isolation. Geography still matters, and always will. But there is no opting out from today’s strategic realities.

Stresses system

First, the liberal rules-based international system built over the last 80 years is under stress. The over-arching trend is of rules giving way to power. We see states willing to abandon diplo-

p Christopher Luxon with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong inspect troops during Luxon’s visit to Singapore in April 2024

macy for war as they seek to alter the status quo. Most blatant is the illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

For all its imperfections, the international order that some are intent on dismantling has — and continues — to serve New Zealand’s interests incredibly well, and dare I suggest Australia’s, too. For instance, our two countries have a stake in an open, rules-based trading order. We are both resisting a concerning trend of countries retreating from WTO rules. For a return to a world where raw power is the primary determinant in advancing states’ interests would be a harsh world indeed; particularly, but not exclusively, for small states like New Zealand.

Second, we see regional orders under serious strain. Significantly, and concerningly, diplomacy has in some cases yielded to violence. Since 7 October 2023, the Middle East has faced new waves of instability: starting with Hamas’ deadly terror attacks; then the devastating conflict in Gaza, where an immediate ceasefire is urgently needed; and the ever-present risk of wider regional escalation.

It is a disturbing reality that we talk less today of the IndoPacific region as the engine room of global economic activity, and more as the locus of concerning flashpoints, including:

l North Korea’s provocative actions and breaches of UN Security Council resolutions.

l The militarisation of disputed features and unsafe encounters on the water in the South China Sea.

l Increasing tension in the Taiwan Strait. Military expansion and modernisation continue at a scale not seen in the region for more than half a century. Absent transparency and reassurance about strategic intent, these changes impact other countries’ sense of security, and how they, in turn, secure their interests. Against this backdrop, we must be cleareyed in recognising the risk of conflict in our wider region has risen. But conflict is not inevitable. All countries have a stake in, and a responsibility to invest in dialogue and diplomacy.

Profound threat

Finally, and closer to home, in the Pacific, climate change is a profound security threat. As shorelines erode, and extreme weather events intensify, Pacific lives and livelihoods are affected in very real ways. Like Australia, we are alive to and responsive to those concerns; for they compound under a confluence of other pressures affecting Pacific states: fiscal stress, cost-of-living pressures and weak GDP growth; development challenges, and infrastructure deficits; and geopolitical pressure. Pacific nations face a stark set of challenges, often with fewer resources and options for dealing with them. In short, the world is getting more difficult and more complex, particularly so for those smaller states navigating increasingly stormy seas. However, we must engage with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

As we look outwards, we see many others — including Australia — working to buttress the system of rules and norms through engagement, reassurance and deterrence. New Zealand, too, must be a participant and a contributor — not an interested bystander. That is not simply because it is the right thing to do, but because it is in New Zealand’s interests. My government is determined to build a prosperous resilient economy, but we cannot achieve prosperity without security. Together with my Foreign, Defence and Trade ministers, the four of us are collectively bringing more energy, more urgency and a sharper focus to New Zealand’s external engagement. Together, we are marshalling all instruments of statecraft — development, diplo-

macy, defence and commerce — in a co-ordinated way. Bringing purpose and clarity to the relationships we are investing in, and the issues and challenges we are focusing on.

I pay particular tribute to my deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, who is among the most activist and impactful of New Zealand’s foreign ministers in a generation. Bringing his wisdom, experience and extraordinary networks to the portfolio, he is reshaping our foreign policy. And he sets an absolutely cracking pace: in just nine months, he has visited 30 countries, getting New Zealand and our interests back in the game. When he was last foreign minister, Winston Peters drove an uplift in New Zealand’s engagement in the Pacific. That was the right policy then; and it is the right policy now.

Intensive focus

So we are sustaining that intensive focus on our immediate neighbourhood. We want to be great partners to our Pacific friends. That means listening to their priorities and partnering with them on real solutions. Already, I have met nine of the region’s leaders, hearing first-hand about their challenges. As a country, we have got the tools to make a big impact.

l Thirty government departments with some form of engagement with Pacific counterparts, ranging from Health to Customs, from the Reserve Bank to Corrections.

l Economic ties underpinned by PACER Plus, the regional trade agreement, together with our seasonal worker programme.

l An aid programme delivering $600 million in support to the Pacific every year.

l Defence and police forces partnering with their Pacific counterparts to do things such as supporting the Solomon Islands election, searching for lost fishermen, working with Samoa to deliver CHOGM and delivering relief supplies.

l And a close partnership with Australia, which is indispensable to the region.

Last August, I attended my first Pacific Islands Forum, where my focus was on understanding my counterparts’ priorities for our region. New Zealand is committed to listening to our Pacific partners and respecting the principle of Pacific Islands Forum centrality to translate the Forum leaders’ Blue Pacific goals into action.

The foundation of our Foreign Policy Reset is our collaboration with long-standing partners, who we know best and with whom we have deep reservoirs of trust. We are deliberately deepening our relationships with Australia, as well as other Five Eyes partners. This is my third visit to Australia in less than a year. Half of my Cabinet has been here. That is deliberate: we are committed to a deep and broad relationship with Australia,

Christopher Luxon with Foreign Minister Winston Peters

which I will return to below.

Australia is first and foremost, but we are also building depth into our relationship with other close partners. With the United States, we are improving the architecture of our relationship with annual foreign ministers’ talks and a technology dialogue. We are also doing more together. In our Pacific region, we are working with the United States to build resilience. Another example is our contribution to the collective effort, under US leadership, to counter Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and restore the important principle of freedom of navigation.

Ukraine support

With the United Kingdom, we are contributing almost a hundred personnel to train Ukrainian infantry. As I have assured President Volodymyr Zelensky, whether by helping Ukraine defend itself or sanctioning Russia, New Zealand is in it for the long haul. That is because we demand that international rules are respected. It is because security is indivisible, with what happens in Europe reverberating in our own region.

While at the NATO Summit, I met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: and he, Anthony Albanese and I have put out three statements jointly this year. Each of these is a clear enunciation of our views on the Middle East. Each of these is a great example of how we three are stronger when we project together.

And, our strategic and our economic interests are most acutely engaged in the Indo-Pacific region — the part of the world in which we are lucky enough to reside. Sustaining economic growth at rates of more than 5 per cent of GDP — year-in, year-out — South-east Asia is an incredibly dynamic part of the world, one that is turning to us at precisely the same time we are re-energising our commitment to them. I am committed to lifting New Zealand’s relationship with our South-east Asian friends by building holistic and strategic partnerships with them, by being more present and by being more responsive to their needs.

Thanks to Anthony Albanese’s kind invitation, I was able to meet with all the South-east Asian leaders in Melbourne in March 2024. Since then, I have either hosted or visited with my Singaporean, Thai, Philippine and Vietnamese colleagues. And I intend to visit more of the region shortly. In 2025, we will mark a special anniversary, commemorating 50 years of New Zealand’s relationship with ASEAN, our partners in regional integration. That will be a major priority for me.

India’s significant influence is both profound and growing. My government is determined to broaden and deepen our relationship with New Delhi. We have started as we mean to go on.

The foreign minister has visited India once, my Trade minister twice and he was there again in August wearing his Agriculture hat. At the same time we welcomed India’s president. Prime Minister Modi and I have connected, and I look forward to meeting him in person.

Longstanding partner

Japan is an important and long-standing partner, so I was pleased to get to Tokyo early in 2024, to strengthen our security ties, lift our co-operation in the Pacific and advance new opportunities for trade and investment.

China remains New Zealand’s biggest trading partner and a country of undoubted influence, and a country with which we want to work to find solutions to shared challenges like climate change. Equally clearly — and as I conveyed to Premier Li Qiang when he visited New Zealand — the difference in values and systems of government mean there are issues on which we cannot and will not agree. Where we disagree, we will raise our concerns privately and also, when necessary, publicly in a consistent and predictable manner. When we speak out, we do so based on our interests and values. A good example of that was my government’s decision this year to publicly attribute a cyberattack on our parliamentary computer networks to a People’s Republic of China state-backed entity.

Finally, on the Indo-Pacific region, I champion the architecture, existing and evolving, that scaffolds the region’s prosperity and its security. Economically, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership is central. We want the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to build on its early promise, too.

Strategically, we are strongly supportive of the indispensable role played by the United States in the region, and the broader array of alliances and partnerships that buttress the region’s prosperity and security. We support constructs like the Quad and Partners for the Blue Pacific that amplify likeminded countries’ efforts to act in partnership, while respecting the centrality of regional organisations like ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum. And I was pleased to chair the third meeting of the ‘Indo-Pacific Four’ leaders at NATO, a grouping that, together with New Zealand, encompasses Australia, Japan and the Republic of Korea, and which has an important contribution to make.

Across many of these examples, working in partnership with Australia is an instinctive and fundamental part of New Zealand’s approach. This is an opportunity to set out how we can

The Pacific Islands Forum in August 2024

do more together, and with greater effect. The bonds of history, geography, common values, our deep people-to-people links are often captured in a simple phrase — we are family. Australia is New Zealand’s indispensable ally, partner and friend. It is more relevant to us than ever as we forge our path in a more contested world. And, dare I say, we are more relevant to Australia than ever. My government has three broad ambitions for our partnership.

Shared security

First, we will bolster shared security. Early in 2024 we reaffirmed our shared commitment to the ANZUS Treaty, which formalises our alliance commitments to each other. New Zealand is committed to remaining a credible and effective ally and partner. In the coming months, my government will confirm a new Defence Capability Plan, which will outline our defence capability priorities and budget trajectory out to 2040. This will mean replacing and upgrading capability and infrastructure which is reaching end of life, as well as investing in new capability.

Strengthening inter-operability with our ally Australia will be a central principle of our capability decisions. It is important we can continue to deploy alongside each other in response to the growing array of security challenges we face, particularly in the face of rapid technological change. In this regard, we welcome AUKUS as an initiative to enhance regional security and stability.

New Zealand is not involved in Pillar 1 of AUKUS. Australia understands that our anti-nuclear policy remains unchanged. Pillar 2 of AUKUS involves co-operation on advanced technologies — including some, such as cyber, on which we have long co-operated with partners. New Zealand is exploring with the AUKUS partners how we could potentially participate in Pillar 2, including to understand what this means for our focus on ensuring inter-operability.

Our second broad ambition for our relationship is continuing to partner in the Pacific in support of Pacific priorities. New Zealand and Australia are both working as steadfast partners

in support of our fellow Pacific Islands Forum members. Both of our countries have significant familial, cultural and geographic ties into the Pacific.

Like Australia we want to strengthen the region’s capacity to ensure the prosperity and well-being of future Pacific generations, especially through the Pacific Islands Forum. Together Australia and New Zealand contribute around half of all aid to the Pacific. We are working with Australia and Pacific countries to improve infrastructure and connectivity — the Pacific Connect cable is a great example.

Economic integration

Thirdly, we want to ensure prosperous economies on both sides of the Tasman. Between New Zealand and Australia, we are working to further deepen our own bilateral economic integration. Australia provides more than half of New Zealand’s stock of foreign direct investment. It is our second biggest trading partner. And, for Australia, New Zealand adds an economy the size of Western Australia. We provide our emerging companies markets to cut their teeth as first-time exporters.

There are further gains to be had through trans-Tasman integration. We need to do the basics right — through standards harmonisation. We need to ensure alignment of our regulatory environments for new technologies — whether the clean energy transition or artificial intelligence. This work is not glamorous or sexy. It is about scraping the barnacles off the bottom of the boat, so the boat goes faster. And I recommit to that essential maintenance.

To return to where I began, the prosperity it enables is crucial to ensuring that we are equipped to respond to the more challenging world around us. Making our way in a more challenging world demands more energy, more urgency and a sharper focus. New Zealand is a vibrant, globally connected, open trading nation. We are a nation with a contribution to make. And an international role to play. My government will return to the fine tradition of Kiwi activism on the world stage.

Christopher Luxon (at left) with other Indo-Pacific leaders, Suk Yeol Yoon (South Korea), Jens Stoltenberg (NATO secretary-general), Joe Biden (United States), Fumio Kishida (Japan) and Richard Marles (Australia), at the NATO summit in Washington in July 2024

Small state diplomacy

Frederick Mitchell discusses The Bahamas’ approach to climate change, democracy and security.

The Bahamas, a Commonwealth member that pursues its foreign policy within a multilateral context, is a strong supporter of the United Nations. It is seeking a seat in the world body’s Security Council for the two-year period 2032–33, the election for which takes place in 2031. It is also an active member in the CARICOM group of fifteen Caribbean countries, thirteen of them former colonies of the United Kingdom, plus Haiti and Suriname. Key issues facing The Bahamas include combating the effects of climate change and securing reparatory justice for the slavery imposed on the ancestors of many of its citizens.

The Bahamas operates its foreign policy within a multilateral context. This was the foundational principle laid down by our founding Prime Minister Lynden Pindling 51 years ago when we joined the United Nations.

We, like New Zealand, are members of the Commonwealth. I determined when I first became foreign minister in 2002 that we should have diplomatic relations with every Commonwealth country and we are just now getting close to that goal. We consider New Zealand to be a friend in every respect, having co-operated in the Commonwealth context and at the United Nations.

The Bahamas is seeking a seat in the United Nations Security Council in the years 2032 and 2033 and the election takes place in 2031. We are seeking actively the support of New Zealand and this region and offer to support New Zealand in its diplomatic and trade ambitions.

Hon Frederick A. Mitchell MP has been the foreign minister and minister of the public service of The Bahamas since 2021, his third stint in the office having previously served from 2002 to 2007 and 2012 to 2017. This article is the edited text of an address he gave at the University of Auckland on 29 October 2024.

p Nassau, capital of The Bahamas

Frederick Mitchell delivers his address in Auckland on 29 October

Lynden Pindling

The other important body in this context in which we operate our foreign policy is the CARICOM group. This is a group of fifteen countries, thirteen of them former colonies of the United Kingdom, plus Haiti and Suriname. We seek to co-ordinate the foreign policy of our countries to our mutual benefit. The number one issue for all our countries is the issue of climate change.

New Zealand has been a leader in the fight on climate change. We look forward to working with New Zealand on the issues at the COP 29, which will take place in Baku in Azerbaijan in November.

I have come here directly from Samoa. There the prime minister of Samoa, Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa, and the prime minister of The Bahamas, Philip Davis, signed a communiqué to establish diplomatic relations between our two countries. Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa and her people presided over a successful heads of government meeting. The two main issues at the meeting were climate change and reparatory justice for slavery and indigenous people. Having regard to the history of New Zealand, this is also a theme that I have discussed while here in New Zealand.

I had an excellent meeting on 28 October with a representative of the Māori community, Tania te Whenua, and explained some of the synergies and convergences of our shared experiences in colonialism from history and how we can learn from each other on these issues.

Reparations fight

In the Caribbean, we are engaged in a fight for reparatory justice arising out of the millions of African slaves who were brought forcibly to the Caribbean during the centuries from 1400 to the 1800s. It is believed that 3 million slaves were brought to the Caribbean by the British and millions more to the Americas. It is now widely acknowledged that this was a great moral wrong. Millions perished in the middle passage. The slave owners got compensation, the slaves and their dependents did not. The bonds that supported the borrowing to pay off the British government’s debt for the compensation was just paid off in 2015. There is now an argument for reparatory justice.

In The Bahamas, where the majority are the descendants of African slaves, there is no native or indigenous population or first nation. By the time the Europeans and Africans arrived, history tells us that the Spanish who visited the islands in 1492

and afterwards, had denuded the islands of their populations and left them barren of inhabitants. In 1648 then when the British settlers arrived, fleeing religious persecution in Bermuda, there was no one there or so history tells us. The society then began in its present incarnation.

The descendants of African slaves became the majority of the population after the war of independence that created the United States. Loyalists to the British crown were expelled from the United States and moved to the Bahamas to take advantage of the land being offered in generous grants for their loyalty. They implemented a system of apartheid both in law and later by social practice. From 1648 through 1782, there followed a period of slavery, and a social construct which was not set aside until what we call Majority Rule on 10 January 1967. Majority Rule Day marks the first time that an African-led administration governed The Bahamas. Slavery was abolished in 1834. Today, we are a modern democratic state, but we suffer the dysfunctions of the legacy of slavery and under-development.

We face an existential threat of climate change with 80 per cent of the land in The Bahamas being within one metre of sea level. But we have faith that we can overcome all of these obstacles and difficulties through working together and what better place than to start right here in New Zealand. I think of this visit as establishing a beachhead for The Bahamas. We hope that this will be the beginning of another chapter in a beautiful friendship. We are actively seeking someone who can be an honorary consul, to look after our interests here.

Collaborative opportunities

We see tremendous opportunities for collaboration with New Zealand and the Pacific Islands nations. We share similar challenges and can learn from each other’s experiences. We can work together to advocate for climate action, strengthen democracy and promote peace and security in our regions and reparatory justice. I commend New Zealand’s on-going work in supporting Pacific Islands nations to address the current impacts of climate change and to build resilience against the challenging future it promises.

As we face these global challenges, strong partnerships are essential. The Bahamas and New Zealand, though geographically distant, are close in our shared values and commitment to the Commonwealth. Our diplomatic ties, formalised in this century, are a testament to this connection. I want to thank High Commissioner Linda Te Puni for her dedication to strengthening our regional bonds. We look forward to welcoming her to Nassau. New Zealand’s engagement in the Caribbean, particularly on SIDS issues, is invaluable. We share a commitment to a rules-based international order, multilateralism and sustainable development.

We recognise New Zealand’s deep ties with the Caribbean, spanning culture, sports and the Commonwealth. We see opportunities to expand our collaboration in areas like climate resilience, trade, renewable energy and disaster preparedness. The CARICOM Development Cooperation Arrangement is a key part of this.

The challenges we face demand innovative solutions and joint action. We invite New Zealanders to visit The Bahamas, experience our culture and witness the beauty and fragility of our precious islands firsthand. We encourage research partnerships with the University of The Bahamas’ Small Island Sustainability Centre, a hub for finding practical solutions for island nations. Our aspiration is a world where all nations, big and small, work together to solve common problems.

Prime Ministers Philip Davis of The Bahamas and Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa of Samoa sign the documents establishing diplomatic relations during the recent CHOGM

A chance for peace

Kyrylo Kutcher suggests championing the Charter to fight veto abuse in the UN Security Council.

An accelerated corruption of the power to veto any resolution in the UN Security Council by permanent members threatens the world order within the United Nations framework. The threedecades-long discussions in the format of the UN Open-Ended Working Group and then Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform have been aiming for a complex reformation of the Security Council. With no agreement in sight today, it is paramount to prioritise a standalone resolution of a single most impactful issue — abuse of the veto privilege. Attempted calls to voluntarily restrain from opposing drafted resolutions concerning specific topics, such as mass atrocities, were ignored by three out of five permanent members. Increased international scrutiny and moral pressure at the follow-up meetings of the General Assembly over a registered veto in the Security Council proved futile.

To avoid being coerced by empowered states, New Zealand (along with other small countries), if it still trusts in diplomacy, must mobilise its international credibility capital and push for adherence to the rule of law. In particular, this article recommends championing already available mechanisms under the United Nations Charter obligation of a party to a dispute to abstain from voting in the Security Council and advancing their legal potency.

The Security Council fails in its core function of maintaining global peace and security. An abuse of the veto privilege has been preventing the United Nations from adopting legally binding resolutions concerning the adequate reaction to atrocities against civilians (as in Syria), aggressions against other states (as in the Russian invasion of Ukraine), consolidated actions against active terrorist organisations (like Hamas) and, lately, a commitment to the standing international Outer Space Treaty precluding the proliferation of the nuclear weapons in space. In such circumstances of international legal limbo, small states, like New Zealand, can find themselves powerless against the assertive actions of larger and privileged geopolitical rivals.

Initiatives to reform the Security Council have been futile for the last three decades. Since the expansion in 1965, the Security Council has consisted of the existing five permanent mem-

Kyrylo Kutcher is a Ukrainian-New Zealander and holds a master of science degree from National Technical University of Ukraine (‘Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’). He is currently in the Politics and International Relations programme at Massey University.

bers (United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia) with the power to veto any motion and ten non-permanent members without that power elected for a two-year tenure. In the 1990s, the General Assembly commenced a review of the representation and effectiveness of the Security Council, reformatted and formalised in 2008 as the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) among groups of the UN member-states, which continues today. The IGN process produced the Framework Document in 2015 and the regularly amended and lately titled ‘Revised Co-Chairs’ Elements Paper on Convergences and Divergences on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters’. Among the five pivotal issues under negotiation are questions of the veto, on which this article focuses, and the size and working methods of the Security Council, which are considered among alternatives and alongside recommendations.

Alternative approaches

Among states and academia, some argue that expanded membership in the Security Council would increase global public pressure on the permanent five and persuade them not to use the veto against those resolutions which garner broad international support.1 Currently, several alternative Security Council models are being discussed within the IGN. Aside from the veto question and methods, proposals cover membership status (permanent and non-permanent), total number of members (21–27), years to serve (two to ten) and regional quotas. New Zealand has been supporting the ‘Intermediate model’ proposed by Liechtenstein, which recommended an expansion of the Security Council mainly through six new long-term non-permanent seats without veto power. Australia has been backing the proposal from the Group of Four (Brazil, Germany, India and Japan), which suggests six new permanent seats and further enlargement of the two-year non-permanent membership. Other models under consideration include those from the Uniting for Consensus bloc, predominantly representing regional rivals of the Group of Four, and from the L.69 Group, which consists of approximately three dozen developing countries. An expanded membership is part of a complex geopolitical solution, on which agreement remains elusive even after many years of discussions.

Some members have championed enhancement of the methods by which the Security Council works and interacts with the General Assembly as a means of improving accountability for vetoes that are cast. For instance, Resolution A/RES/76/262, adopted in April 2022 and known as Liechtenstein’s Veto Initiative, mandates an urgent debate by the General Assembly every time a veto is registered in the Security Council, enabling broad international scrutiny of a permanent member’s decision. Despite being lauded by many countries, including New Zea-

land and Australia, this initiative has failed to moderate abuse of the veto power, with the number of resolutions vetoed over the two years following its passage being identical to those between 2017 and 2019.² Past initiatives proposed to suspend the use of the veto in cases concerning mass atrocities. More than 120 countries, including the United Kingdom and France, became signatories to the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency informal code of conduct, whose members pledged not to vote against credible proposals concerning genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Notwithstanding often overwhelming collective moral pressure, Russia and China in particular continued to shield their geopolitical self-interest and veil their crimes behind the veto at a massive cost in human lives worldwide.

Solutions which need an amendment of the UN Charter depend on international consensus but pivotally on an agreement among the five permanent members. However, some of these members are steadfast in vetoing any amendments which might dilute their power. Proposals based on voluntary pledges assume common moral values. Unfortunately, Russia and China have consistently demonstrated over a prolonged period that they do not share the moral standards upheld by the West, thus separating themselves from the other three permanent members. Moreover, applying any restrictions on veto usage requires a legitimate and timely decision on whether a case under consideration meets the agreed conditions. Therefore, in today’s global circumstances, the foremost diplomatic task of the United Nations must be to resolve the veto problem directly and agilely.

Existing provision

The Charter of the United Nations already contains a legal provision to limit the veto power under Article 27:

Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.

(italics added)

International legal scholars³ consider this to require obligatory abstention for a party to a dispute and point to precedents of the abstention rule’s observation in the past. An inter-state armed aggression is a breach of the peace. Ukraine and other UN members have regularly reminded the international community that protecting the peace through resolving international disputes is the primary purpose of the Security Council and hence urged its members to adhere to the provision. To attempt that, members of the Security Council must be the first to formally challenge the legitimacy of the veto vote registered by a permanent member that might reasonably be considered a party to the dispute in question.

In any specific case, any UN member has the right to lodge an issue with the International Court of Justice, seeking formal interpretation and ruling on the legitimacy of the vote under the terms of the UN Charter. According to Article 94, paragraph 1, the decision of the international court must be complied with by a party to a dispute. The General Assembly should also discuss the interpretation of the abstention clause in Article 27 and formalise any agreements on further actions through drafting and voting for a resolution. UN members must diligently observe this provision and stand up collectively and legally against any state that breaches its terms. Ultimately, the international court should hold supreme authority in questions of interpretation of UN treaties and legal documents, with no member standing above its ruling.

Active support

The New Zealand government and its representatives in the United Nations should actively support moves to limit the use of the veto power by the existing permanent members in the Security Council, referring to Article 27, paragraph 3 of the UN Charter:

l At every official occasion, promote and champion the provision’s interpretation as an obligatory abstention from voting by a party to a dispute.

l Encourage partners in the Security Council to challenge and formally raise an issue of adherence to the provision immediately upon every instance of its abuse.

l After every veto use deliberation at the following UN General Assembly meeting as per the Veto Initiative resolution, if there are still reasonable concerns about the veto privilege abuse, formally submit the issue before the International Court of Justice to judge its coherence with the provision.

l Within the General Assembly, discuss and advocate for the international court’s legal powers to judge the interpretation of provisions in UN treaties and documents and formalise agreements and necessary actions by drafting and voting a resolution.

Engagement in these initiatives would help to accelerate the resolution of veto abuses by permanent members of the Security Council on individual occasions, expedite legitimate actions to deter even a privileged aggressor and ensure that existing UN international legal and security frameworks remain relevant and potent in protecting global and regional peace.

To ensure national and regional security, the New Zealand government must advance the legal power of the UN Charter’s provision prohibiting the use of the veto by a party to a dispute in the Security Council. This endeavour is the only remaining diplomatic hope to carve peace out of the stagnating concept of the United Nations.

NOTES

1. Stewart Patrick (ed), UN Security Council Reform: What the World Thinks, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2023 (carn egieendowment.org/2023/06/28/un-security-council-reform-whatworld-thinks-pub-90032); Bjarke Z. Winther, ‘A Review of the Academic Debate about United Nations Security Council Reform’, Chinese Journal of Global Governance, vol 6, no 1 (2020), pp.71–101.

2. Hasmik Egian, ‘Who Knew? Reform is Happening in the UN Security Council’, PassBlue, 24 Apr 2024 (www.passblue.com/2024/04/24/ who-knew-reform-is-happening-in-the-un-security-council/).

3. Anne Peters, ‘The war in Ukraine and legal limitations on Russian vetoes’, Journal on the Use of Force and International Law, vol 10, no 2 (2023), pp.162–72; Stephen E. Smith, ‘Reviving the obligatory abstention rule in the UN Security Council: Reform from the Inside Out’, New Zealand Yearbook of International Law, vol 12 (2014), pp.15–27.

The Security Council in session

BOOKS

WAR

Author: Bob Woodward

Published by: Simon & Schuster, New York, 2024, 435pp, $60.

Still in full cry, Bob Woodward is a seasoned investigative reporter who, with Carl Bernstein, made his name over the Watergate scandal. His latest offering interleaves three critical issues of our time: the war in Ukraine; Israel’s post-October 2023 military onslaught into Gaza; and the United States presidential contest of 2024. Much of the material provided relies upon long established Washington contacts with nuggets and insights provided without attribution.

For Ukraine, it is shown that American intelligence was satisfied by the final quarter of 2021 that Vladimir Putin planned to invade, this to the disbelief of major allies. After reading a preceding July diatribe by Putin, security adviser Jake Sullivan was convinced that this decision germinated during the leader’s self-imposed Covid quarantine. Surrounded by a small circle of acolytes, Putin insisted that the creation of an independent Ukraine now comprised a nuclear weapons threat to Russia. Tightly controlled, his invasion planning excluded Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and, more importantly, key military leaders. This resulted in the invasion’s initial disarray, doubtless compounding Wagner group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s fulminations against the official military, culminating in his abortive ‘March for Justice’ in July 2023.

Concerned at the conflict’s danger of spreading, President Joe Biden urged Sweden and Finland to join NATO, an option kept closed for Ukraine. But among his advisers he admitted that there was now a dilemma: failing to eject Russia from Ukraine let Putin off the hook; doing so risked breaking the taboo against use of tactical nuclear weapons. An added complication was the legacy of past failures, including Barack Obama’s passive response to Russia’s 2014 intervention in Crimea and, still raw, the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Both gave inadvertent green lights for Putin to invade. While Biden’s approach to this crisis is considered one of prudent pragmatism, he was helped by the blunt warnings given to the Russians by both Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Vice President Kamala Harris.

If Ukraine was difficult, Israel and Gaza proved frustrating beyond exasperation. For peripatetic Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, consistent Israeli refusal to allow humanitar-

Notes on reviewers

Dr Roderic Alley is senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington.

Prof Bethan Greener is head of school (people, environment and planning) at Massey University.

Dr Tim Fadgen is a senior lecturer in politics and international relations and associate director of the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland.

ian passage access to Gaza was not just obstructive but chilling. On this issue Netanyahu’s answer was the need for a corridor allowing a mass transit of the entire Gaza populace into Egypt, a suggestion bound to outrage President Sisi in Cairo. If anything, Blinken’s exchanges in Arab capitals proved more helpful. In Amman, King Abdullah confirmed that Israel had generously funded Hamas over the years to stabilise Gaza and keep the Palestinians divided. In Saudi Arabia, and meeting with crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, Blinken asked about prospects for Palestinian statehood. ‘Do I want it’ his host replied, ‘not much; do I need it, absolutely’. Why this response? The answer was a youthful Saudi population now focused as never before on the Palestinian cause since the fateful 7 October 2023.

Accordingly Blinken is recorded as then telling Netanyahu that Arab capitals supported a defeat of Hamas, but that ‘Israel needs to give us space’ to help tackle the social and economic grievances feeding its ideology. To this came a flat no from Netanyahu, claiming he was unprepared to provide an ounce of relief to the people of Gaza.

These major conflicts disturbed the American presidential race but did so unevenly. Of the protagonists, Biden incurred the heaviest toll; doubts about his suitability as a candidate were mounting on account of his palpable ageing, family problems and the brick like obduracy of Putin and Netanyahu. His eventual standing down is seen here as less momentous than his immediate endorsement of Kamala Harris

True to form, audiences cheered Donald Trump at a rally in February 2024 when, so far as he was concerned, Russia ‘could do what the hell they want’ should they attack NATO members failing to pay their fair share towards collective defence. He continued to favour use of the military to quell local protests, this to the consternation of General Mark Milley who deemed it prudent to secure his home with bullet proof glass. Persisting was the insouciance Trump previously displayed when shrugging off warnings that moving the capital of Israel to Jerusalem could incite another intifada. Claiming support for Ukraine was a waste of taxpayer dollars, he vetoed every attempt for an aid package. That hostility did modify, however, following his meeting with President Duda of Poland. Nevertheless for foreign readers, the Trump enigma remains, namely, how has such a figure come to dominate the party of Abraham Lincoln? Recorded here is a comment by Senator Lindsay Graham saying accolades paid to Trump by his followers at Mar-a-Lago would do North Korea proud.

The overall impression taken from this lively, informed publication is the aura of uncertainty conveyed by what it is describ-

ing. Never absent from the key American actors involved is the anxiety of those skating across thin ice. That they might find safety in the law goes unmentioned, with no reference made to the significant ruling on Gaza issued by the International Court of Justice.

Despite some gaffes, including alarming NATO when questioning its unity in facing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden emerges as a solid collective security multilateralist. Overall his legacy is judged positively. Yet considering the licence with which the United States interpreted the UN Charter’s Article 51 regarding self-defence in the run up to the 2003 Iraq War, an expansiveness gladly emulated by Russia and Israel, there is a mote to the beam of Washington’s eye that it cannot ignore.

RODERIC ALLEY

CONSOLATIONS OF INSIGNIFICANCE

A New Zealand Diplomatic Memoir

Author: Terence O’Brien

Published by: Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington Press, Wellington, 2024, 192pp, $40.

In the mid-1990s, undergraduate students of international politics (like me) were mesmerised by New Zealand’s diplomatic presence on the UN Security Council. The Cold War was dissipating, and the 1991 Gulf War suggested the possibility of a new era for the United Nations and collective security, hopes that then were dashed by failings in Somalia and inaction in the face of genocide in Rwanda. Centre stage in the unfolding drama at the United Nations was seasoned diplomat Terence O’Brien. Instantly recognisable in later life by his shock of silver hair, sharp retorts and snappy interjections, O’Brien did not suffer fools gladly, but when one had a chance to get to know him it became clear that he was nonetheless an incredibly generous individual with a zest for life and living.

As the preface by former Prime Minister Jim Bolger indicates, this book is as much about the making, shaping and practicing of New Zealand’s foreign policy as it is about O’Brien. But we also get a glimpse at his personal life, with the foreword by his wife and children noting that he (literally) became grounded as a New Zealander with his barefoot walk over sand to school in Mt Maunganui. It is a privilege to learn about diplomacy from one who lived it so well, and O’Brien’s personality as well as his classical style of writing shines through in this volume.

Small colourful details bring to life what could have been a rather dull relaying of official business. Throughout the opening pages of his memoir, O’Brien notes how privileges were doled out in the form of after-hours drinks and banned shellfish in Wellington and how burning highly classified files in a 44-gallon drum when posted in Bangkok necessitated a chasing down of all floating scraps of burning paper to prevent them from wafting over the fence to the Soviet embassy next door. There are stories of the RNZAF breaking the loading record for the C-130 Hercules aircraft to get furnishings delivered to the brand new New Zealand embassy in Beijing in 1973, and a reminder of what life was like in Beijing in that era, with evocative descriptions of ‘thousands upon thousands of cyclists everywhere on the main city thoroughfares, all dressed alike in Mao style’. In the 1970s in London, he informs us that offices in the UK Foreign

and Commonwealth Office were kept, probably dismally, warm by coal-fed open fires, and that efforts to negotiate important trade deals were at times by necessity fuelled by ‘elderly sandwiches’. These details help to bring this diplomatic journey to life and are dotted throughout the book, providing lily pads of amusement for a tired reader.

At times, too, O’Brien draws attention to little known events, such as the Viet Cong bombing of a hotel within which New Zealand had set up an official presence, and the consequent injuring of New Zealand’s recently appointed chargé d’affaires. The fact that New Zealand only ceased whaling in 1964 will be of news to some, as will the recounting of the Lange government’s interest in Denmark as a test case for thinking about New Zealand’s non-nuclear policy. Denmark also had a ban on nuclear-armed vessels in ports but did not require confirmation from visiting ships that they were not carrying such arms. Similarly, the fact that the Foreign Ministry’s leadership was in two minds about putting forward a bid for UN Security Council membership is little known and casts doubt on the dominant narrative about New Zealand’s desire to be a good international citizen.

O’Brien writes with a gentle humour throughout, humanising the perceived ‘high politics’ of diplomatic life. Indeed, this is a major contribution of the book: it underscores the lived realities of diplomatic life as being one of largely mundane tasks that cumulatively combine to help New Zealand to secure trade deals, de-escalate political crises or negotiate strategic alliances. Indeed, the title itself indicates both O’Brien’s ability to poke fun at himself and his awareness that a foreign affairs career offers up a smoke and mirrors impression of the high life, whilst demanding brutal personal and professional commitment involving serious graft and grind.

The photographs at the centre of the book are similarly instructive. Were they all staged handshakes they could be viewed as a brag sheet of ‘important people Terence has known’, but the casual nature of many of them underscores again the relentless work involved in diplomacy that takes place 24/7 in ever-changing locations, as well as the enduring nature of the work — with no less than six New Zealand prime ministers appearing in the photographs.

However, this work also moves out of the diplomatic sphere and into academia as O’Brien finished his working life with the establishment and leadership of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. Designed to increase understanding of foreign affairs, amongst other things, this centre and its various leaders have benefitted New Zealand greatly. O’Brien mentions taking on an unpaid intern — David Capie — who has come full circle to ably lead the CSS today. Here some of the highlights are discussions about an unprecedented visit to North Korea in 1998 and a frank relaying of the tensions inherent in attempting to retain independence from government whilst nonetheless commenting on governmental affairs. In this section, as in a few others, there are hints of resistances to his appointments to various positions, but — perhaps for gentlemanly reasons — these resistances are not prodded.

As well as providing engaging prose, O’Brien also raises some of his long-standing pet hates. The lack of understanding about the importance of international affairs and the dearth of appreciation of the need to properly resource diplomatic efforts come up several times in the book. On the latter there is reference to ‘cheeseparing budgets’ and suggestions that the Ministry of External Relations and Trade (the Foreign Ministry’s name from 1988–93) was ‘frequently sidelined’ when it came to

advice regarding cost-cutting exercises in the South Pacific. Such assertions are contestable, particularly as all of ‘NZ Inc’ tends to run on a shoestring, but were some of his key beliefs.

Relatedly, O’Brien beats another drum when he emphasises the fact that, particularly in the absence of hard power options, ‘diplomacy remains New Zealand’s first specification in international relations. Intelligence does not make foreign policy; it supplements it’. For O’Brien, ‘Diplomacy cannot spin straw into gold, but it remains a venerable tool for managing relations between countries’.

O’Brien’s work also suggests reasons for caution in connecting day-to-day diplomatic activities with an assumed overarching strategic narrative. He notes, for example, that the work carried out during the Vietnam War ‘conveyed little sense of involvement with a grand strategic plan to arrest the so-called domino theory’ and describes instances of well-intentioned aid and development failures on and off throughout the book. Such words are helpful in reminding us that diplomacy is not often as ordered or as well planned as we might like to think.

At times, too, O’Brien discusses some of the more negative aspects of foreign policy life. In the opening pages, for example, he readily admits that ‘patriarchy ruled’ in Wellington in his early years as a diplomat, and that at least one UN secretary-general was uncertain about appointing women to senior roles. He nods to the distastefulness of needing to uphold government objectives in the face of contradictory evidence: he had doubts about transplanting the Westminster model of politics into the Cook Islands and indicated concerns about the human toll exacted by sanctions in Iraq.

This brings me to the main critique I could level at this work, which is that, at times, the reader needs additional unpacking and personal evaluations of contentious issues raised. We learn that the New Zealand embassy in Bangkok, where O’Brien served, is given responsibility for Vietnam affairs during the early stages of the Vietnam War. In speaking of the embassy’s support for establishing a New Zealand surgical team in Qui Nhon, he notes that: ‘New Zealand hoped the commitment might perhaps allow us to sidestep further American requests for direct military support in the deteriorating security situation. In the event, those hopes proved forlorn.’

In such instances he leaves the reader hanging. What wringing of hands was occurring in Bangkok and Wellington at the time, and what other devices were considered to try to ‘sidestep’ American pressure? Later, too, he notes that the tension between whether aid should be a national foreign policy tool or more a social development activity remains a ‘perennial topic’ without really indicating his own thoughts on the matter.

However, in the opening of his work O’Brien warned the reader that he needed to be ‘choosy’ in his reminiscing, and, overall, what he has ‘chosen’ here to share with us results in both an insightful and warm account of diplomatic life, traits that I believe people that knew him would associate with the man himself. He ends with a note of exasperation that the Covid pandemic had appeared to result in ‘downright nationalistic’ re-

sponses when a communal response would have yielded so much more and implores New Zealand policy-makers to prioritise even-handedness in dealing with strategic competition in the years ahead. Wise words from the veteran. Vale, Terence.

BETH GREENER

HISTORIES OF HATE: The Radical Right in

Aotearoa

New Zealand

Editors: Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij and Paul Spoonley

Published by: Otago University Press, Dunedin, 2023, 444pp, $50.

Histories of Hate makes for difficult reading. This is not owing to the many distinguished contributors to this needed book, but rather to its subject matter. The radical right is a concept with which most are familiar, looking as it does off in the distant parts of our collective consciousness. Yet few acknowledge the radical right as a perennial and occasionally potent aspect of our social and political lives. This edited volume grew out of this seldom studied topic and the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosques massacre.

The book sets for itself an ambitious agenda: to provide the historical context of New Zealand’s radical right from the Treaty of Waitangi to the Christchurch massacre and its aftermath. This history is told over five parts: Part One begins by laying the foundation of future right-wing extremist movements with the experiences of colonialism and early racial tensions around these experiences and efforts to both bring in and limit Chinese migration. Part Two moves the discussion to New Zealand’s inter-war years of the early 20th century and the rise of antiSemitism. Part Three moves the discussion to the post-Second World War years and the creation of the myth of the golden age of New Zealand, the rising social divisions exacerbated by the anti-apartheid movement and tensions within New Zealand rugby, before moving into the 1970s and the rise of skinheads as a very visible form of ‘street racism’, as Jarrod Gilbert describes it.

Part Four offers an interlude from the otherwise mostly sequential approach to expand on notions of religious and cultural intolerance and includes a strong chapter on anti-Treatyist discourses and how these have formed part of the right-wing messaging for much of New Zealand’s history — elements of which remain present in today’s politics. Part Five offers a more indepth look into the contemporary state of the radical right, the role of the internet and, returning to the theme of the international, interconnected nature of radical right ideology, imagery and propaganda throughout Europe and settler nations in North America and Australia.

The importance of international movements of people and ideas, their connections and communication over the late 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries is a central theme of the book. We find a thread that begins with the colonisation of New Zealand and the arrival of European settlers and imported ideas of supremacy and the right to rule; it lays the legal and political foundations for New Zealand as a state and its subsequent development as a nation over the ensuing 180 years. The British Empire was the first vehicle for these ideas and New Zealand’s place as outpost. The rulers of the remote colony recognised that the young nation required imported labour in order to achieve its development objectives. This prompted the rise of the impera-

tive to encourage the ‘right’ migrants and deter undesirable ones through such measures as the Chinese exclusion provisions, which persisted into the 20th century.

International movements of the 20th century, including the inter-war years and the ubiquitous and eventually catastrophic nature of anti-Semitism, characterised radical right discourses during these years. Right wing movements often aim to return New Zealand to an earlier and idealised time of economic success and racial order. These tenets formed part of the lingua franca of the radical right, not only in New Zealand but also throughout North America and Europe. The rise of urban, street racism as discussed in Gilbert’s chapter provides perhaps the most visual and public representations of the radical right and fascist imagery. These connections show the importance of the transferability of personal appearance, iconography and other badges of white supremacy, and how these became common throughout much of the European settler states.

The book also provides an important opportunity to consider the various policy settings in response to the radical right. First, the book addresses immigration settings as an attempt to limit the movement of people in two important ways. This involved deliberate attempts to maintain racial homogeneity, through restrictive measures such as the Chinese Immigrants Act [1881] and Amendment Act [1907] (Chapter 1 by Leonie Pihama and Cherryl Smith). A second and more affirmative exercise refers to those efforts to limit the free movement of people with radical right ideas (Chapter 13 by Mark Dunick). Not to mention the absence of such efforts in earlier times, where an early white supremacist such as Arthur Desmond, whose ideas continue to influence those in the global far right, moved with ease from New Zealand to Australia and eventually to the United States, where his ‘Might is Right’ beliefs first took root (Chapter 4 by Mark Derby).

This book presents both the historical as well as contemporary legal, policy and moral dilemmas at the heart of what has made the radical right movement so insidious. Historical periods of boom or bust, the latter of which attracts the disaffected, largely young, male populations who long for some imagined, distant past; a past in which they would have been successful and self-actualised. Yet, instead, they choose to see the world as one where this birth-right has been thwarted by the presence of undesirable, non-white populations, along with their enablers amongst the social elites in government and academia. The book also persuasively connects these strands and their conspiracy-theory-laden milieu to recent movements opposing the state’s lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic as well as QAnon. These final chapters provide fertile ground for reflection about how to make and remake the liberal state that can both remain vigilant whilst reflecting liberal values to effectively confront these challenges.

Despite these many strengths, the volume is not without its limitations. An important weakness is perhaps best illuminated through words from a closing quotation. Michael Daubs’s final chapter closes with a quote from Hamimah Ahmat, widow of one of the Christchurch mosques terrorist attack victims, who

wrote that New Zealand ‘need[s] capable people who have a good understanding of systems, Islam, culture, and the contemporary western mentality’. The book would have benefited from the inclusion of diverse voices to speak on how communities have endured, responded to and overcome racial discrimination in New Zealand more broadly. Here I think of the works of scholars like Rachel Simon-Kumar, Neda Salashour, Eric Boamah and Alfredo José López Severiche, who have each written about migrant experiences in varying policy domains.

Notwithstanding this limitation, the book enhances our understanding of New Zealand’s radical right. The chapters demonstrate the movement as one typically populated by the disenfranchised — a common attribute from the Christchurch shooter all the way back to the founding of the country in 1840. Perhaps it is this pedigree that proves the radical right so resilient despite having never enjoyed wide-spread support in New Zealand: the ability to follow an imagined identity back to an earlier point in time and, in so doing, to see oneself as part of something larger. Readers of this edition, particularly those interested in the international radical right, or scholars of New Zealand politics and government and historians should find the book to be an important resource.

TIM FADGEN

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

‘Prosperity: Security: Values. New Zealand Foreign and Trade Policies in Contested Spaces’

12 June 2025

Venue: Tākina Wellington Convention & Exhibition Centre

INSTITUTE NOTES

National Office and branch activities

On 14 October in Auckland the National Office helped to organise an event titled ‘Doubling New Zealand exports by value: focus is key,’ featuring a talk by Minister for Trade Todd McClay, and a Q & A facilitated by Sarah Salmond, a partner at MinterEliisonRuddWatts, which provided the venue. The event was coorganised by the NZIIA, MinterEllisonRuddWatts and the Helen Clark Foundation

At the end of October the NZIIA published a special report International Politics in the Pacific: Navigating Geostrategic Competition by Auckland University’s Associate Prof Guy Fiti Sinclair. The report synthesises insights from fifteen experts in Pacific international politics convened at the NZIIA Pacific Symposium early in 2024. It considers how international politics, including geostrategic competition, are affecting the Pacific and how New Zealand, Pacific countries and regional institutions can respond to this in the best interests of the region. It was launched in Wellington on 14 November with an expert panel that included Sinclair, Associate Prof Anna Powles (Massey University), Dr Iati Iati (Victoria University of Wellington) and Esala Nayasi, deputy secretary general, Pacific Islands Forum (attending virtually). Caren Rangi ONZM (a Cook Islands. accountant, former public servant and company director) moderated proceedings. (An article outlining Sinclair’s findings is to be found elsewhere in this issue.)

The NZIIA’s next national conference will be held on 12 June 2025 on the theme ‘Prosperity: Security: Values. New Zealand Foreign and Trade Policies in Contested Spaces’ at Tākina Wellington Convention & Exhibition Centre.

On 29 October the foreign minister of The Bahamas, Hon Frederick A. Mitchell, gave a presentation in Auckland on ‘Small State Diplomacy: Climate Change, Democracy and Security’. (His remarks can be found elsewhere in this issue.)

Christchurch

On 27 November HE Neeta Bhushan, high commissioner of India to New Zealand, addressed the branch as part of an end of year celebration.

Hawke’s Bay

The branch heard addresses by Prof Paul Spoonley, emeritus professor at Massey University, and Simon Tucker, director of global sustainability, stakeholder affairs and trade at Fonterra, on 8 and 21 November respectively.

Nelson

On 23 October Dr Christopher Pugsley ONZM addressed the branch on ‘Where Does New Zealand Stand With Their Security Arrangements and Their Partners?’

Palmerston North

On 28 November HE Viktor Vavricka, ambassador of Switzerland to New Zealand, gave a presentation on ‘Small Advanced Economies' Success Factors: Insights from Switzerland’. Following the ambassador’s talk, Mark Oldershaw (executive director of UCOL) and Jerry Shearman (chief executive of CEDA) joined him for a panel discussion moderated by Scott Haumaha (chief executive of SME Collective).

NZUS Media Prize winner Peter McKenzie speaking to an Auckland branch meeting on 4 August

US Ambassador Thomas Udall addresses a Wellington branch meeting on 15 November, with Angus Middleton at right

General Middendorp with Angus Middleton (left) and David Capie

Wairarapa

The following meetings were held:

19 Oct HE Harinder Sidhu AM (Australia’s high commissioner to New Zealand), ‘A Partnership in Action’.

21 Nov Colin Keating (former diplomat and secretary of justice).

Wellington

On 2 October, in conjunction with the Centre for Strategic Studies, the branch held a lunchtime meeting at which HE Arto Haapea, Finland’s ambassador to New Zealand (based in Canberra) spoke on ‘Finnish Perspectives on European Security and the Indo-Pacific’. In the evening the branch again joined the CSS, and the Netherlands embassy, in convening a meeting with General (ret) Tom Middendorp (former Netherlands chief of defence and chair of the International Military Council on Climate and Security), who spoke on ‘The Nexus Between Climate Change and Security’ and his book The Climate General

On 3 October Prof Todd Belt (George Washington University, Washington DC) addressed the branch on ‘The State of the 2024 Election in the United States’.

On 4 October, the branch co-organised a Peace Symposium with a dialogue on ‘Challenges to Peace in Turbulent Times’ at the Beehive Banquet Hall at Parliament. The keynote speakers were former prime minister Rt Hon Helen Clark ONZ and Prof Kevin P. Clements from the Toda Peace Institute hosted by Ingrid Leary MP.

On 31 October the branch joined HE Dr Zsolt Hetesy, ambassador of Hungary to New Zealand, in arranging a roundtable with András Stefanovsky, the head of the Department (Division) for International Analysis within the Office of the Political Director of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

On 15 November, at a lunchtime meeting at the Wellington Club, US Ambassador HE Thomas Udall gave a speech on New Zealand–US relations and his reflections on his time as the twentieth US ambassador to New Zealand.

CORRECTION

In the printed edition of the last issue (vol 49, no 6, p.31), Australia’s high commissioner was incorrectly named as HE Harinder Singh. She is, of course, HE Harinder Sidhu.

András Stefanovsky (fourth from left) is questioned by Roberto Rabel at the roundtable on 31 October

General Middendorp speaks in Wellington on 2 October

Kevin Clements and Helen Clark at the peace symposium on 4 October

Frederick Mitchell (second from right) following his address with (from left) Francesca Long, Hamish McDougall, Rouben Azizian and Karim Dickie

NZIIA Board member Andrew Wierzbicki addresses the Wellington branch on 28 August

CORRESPONDENCE

Sir,

While Brian Easton’s article on New Zealand–Singapore (vol 49, no 4) dovetailed nicely with what Winston Peters said in his NZIIA Annual Lecture about the government’s renewed and increased engagement with South-east Asia, he was uncharacteristically coy about the wellsprings of the bilateral relationship. He speculated that it ‘perhaps’ derived from our joint heritage as part of the British Empire consolidated by the presence in Singapore of the New Zealand military from 1969 to 1989.

He overlooked the staunch support that New Zealand gave to the fledgling city-state from the very outset of its uncertain journey when, abruptly ejected from Malaysia in 1965, it was a Chinese island in a region apprehensive about Mao’s rabidly communist China. Keith Holyoake’s government had been the first country after the United Kingdom to recognise the newly independent state. On the same day, Lee Kuan Yew wrote to Holyoake to thank him for New Zealand’s support through the tense months leading up to separation. He wrote in similar terms to Harold Wilson and Robert Menzies.

All three had worked hard to keep Malaysia together, and then redoubled their commitment to help the two countries make the sensitive political adjustments required for Singapore’s new and uncertain venture. Yes, this was some 60 years ago, but the governments in the region have not forgotten the ANZUK contribution to South-east Asia in those troubled times.

It was a contribution that developed into support for constructive regionalism – most notably our positive response

for ASEAN from the very first months of its conception. In due course ASEAN expanded and then APEC appeared — again strongly supported by New Zealand.

So, we have good credentials throughout a region of highest importance to our country. In re-engagement, Winston Peters will be pushing on a welcoming door. Today, New Zealand and Australia can take legitimate satisfaction from the arc of stability and security — and friendship — that stretches out from Wellington and Canberra through South-east Asia and Indo-China and up to Korea and Japan. This gives Wellington the credentials to encourage China to respect the value, in an uncertain world, of Indo-Pacific stability. It also gives it the credentials to engage with India on Indo-Pacific issues. Not least the implications for the region of its new relationship with the United States. If, as cannot be ruled out, that develops into deepening Sino/Indian difficulties then the ASEAN countries would be disconcerted to say the least. They would not want their region to be a cockpit of large power rivalries. Nor would New Zealand.

So — it is overdue timely for our government to re-engage New Zealand with the countries of South-east Asia. I wonder whether it would be also timely for the NZIR to host a discussion between two or three seasoned experts on the opportunities and challenges that might lie ahead for our country as it implements its regional re-engagement. A transcription of such a discussion might perhaps be a little more arresting than some of the NZIR’s recent articles and diplomats’ speeches….

NICK BRIDGE

Wellington

AN INVITATION

If you are interested in international affairs and you are not already a subscriber to the New Zealand International Review, consider the advantage of receiving this magazine on a regular basis. New Zealand International Review completed its 49th year of publication in 2024. It continues to be the only national magazine exclusively devoted to international issues as they affect New Zealand. Issued bimonthly it is circulated throughout New Zealand and internationally. The NZIR is non-partisan, independent of government and pressure groups and has lively articles from local and international authors, with special emphasis on New Zealand’s international relations. It contains

• stimulating and up-to-date articles on topical issues,

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• information on national and branch activities.

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