For decades New Zealand has been renown for its independent foreign policy, friendly to both the United States and China all the while keeping a respectable distance. Now with a strongly pro-U.S. government in the Beehive, the Government seems keen on trading our reputation for a seat with “the big boys”.
I have always been wary of getting too close to the United States or China when it comes to foreign policy.
I have long believed – and still do – that we as a nation should be investing 90% of all our foreign aid on the South Pacific. Those nations more than America and China, are OUR “back yard”, and whose wellbeing has tangible flow on effects that nothing from America or China can address. Outside of Australia, our neighbours are an eclectic bunch of small atoll/island and slightly larger nations. Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Federation of Micronesia along with Australian territory of Norfolk Island and the French Dependency of New Caledonia are our immediate neighbours.
Many of them are close to failing as states. The Solomon Islands almost failed in the 2000’s and would have except for Australian and New Zealand intervention. Papua New Guinea has a flawed border situation with Indonesia and is subject to tribal warfare, that occasionally flares up. Fiji has the lingering aftermath of a series of coups in 1987 and again in 2000 and 2006.
And yet these nations contribute so much to our identify as a south PACIFIC nation, sharing the same region as a diverse range of ethnicities who arrived by boat as seafarers. The South Pacific is the meeting point of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. All three regions have geographical and geopolitical overlap.
In our rush to appease Washington and Beijing, too often we forget about our little Pasifika neighbours. Too often we do not listen to them around concerns relating to climate change, the exploitation of resources and then wonder why they make the choices that they do with China, which has been investing heavily in the region. Too often we are perceived to be looking down on them in a way that could be described as condescending. And the worst bit is, far too often, the Pasifika nations complaining about this approach, have a point.
New Zealand needs to do better. We can do better, and if we want to regain the respect that they had when we rejected nuclear weapons in the 1980s, we must do better.
Both China and the United States have geopolitical designs in the region. In the case of both, it is ultimately about shoring up against the other. China wants the significant mineral and forestry resources in the region, as well as an outpost for its navy. China has in recent years in other parts of the Pacific, constructed artificial islands on which it has then built naval and airforce bases to spread its influence, which has led to increasingly frequent clashes with the Philippine Coast Guard among others.
The United States has mainly stuck to maintaining forces at existing bases in Australia. However, its economic, military and political clout gives it a reach, that has not necessarily required bases to maintain. The lack of attention it pays to south Pacific nations gives New Zealand some leverage by letting us and Australia – should we so choose – to establish influence with the South Pacific nations, which rightfully reject being under the nuclear umbrella, but might not realize that sooner or later they will have to repay the loans from Beijing with money that they might not have. And if that happens, how long will China continue to play nicely?
Leftist Kiwi Writes 