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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….
