Stand Well Clear: The Filipino-American novelist, Tess Uriza Holthe summed-up the dangers confronting small nations caught up in the rivalries of their much larger friends and neighbours in her oft-quoted aphorism: “When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful.” The primary focus of New Zealand diplomacy should be to make the South Pacific a Pachyderm-Free Zone.
NEW ZEALAND’s relationship with her South Pacific neighbours
can no longer be separated diplomatically from her relationship with China.
Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, confirmed this last week in a speech
delivered to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. The automatic loyalty of this
country’s “Pacific family”, Peters warned, can no longer be taken for granted.
“It has become increasingly obvious that the perception of
New Zealand by Pacific leaders is changing. This reflects a new generation
of postcolonial Pacific leaders who are increasingly confident, independent,
and assertive regionally and internationally. They are more comfortable in
courting a range of external partners.”
In plain English, Peters is saying that the Pacific is no
longer a British or American lake. South Pacific states now have the luxury of
playing off the old imperialist powers of the West against the People’s
Republic of China.
The diplomatic challenge confronting both New Zealand and
Australia is how to reconcile their historical role as imperialism’s local
enforcers, with their present – and growing – economic dependency on the
Chinese market.
It’s a challenge which, until last week, New Zealand was
managing with a great deal more diplomatic finesse than Australia.
The latter’s response to the rise and rise of the People’s
Republic has been to reflexively reassert all the worst aspects of his
imperialistic heritage. Unmoved, apparently, by the fact that China has, for
some time, been Australia’s largest trading partner, the politically-dominant
conservative elements of Australian society have become ever-more strident
cheer-leaders for reasserting Western dominance in the Pacific region.
Ever since President Barack Obama’s much-ballyhooed “pivot” towards
the Asian-Pacific strategic theatre, Australia has made no secret of its
determination to become the leading mid-level power of South-East Asia – i.e.
to outstrip the military capability of the Indonesians. Only recently, the
Liberal-National Government of Malcolm Turnbull announced its goal of lifting
Australia into the ranks of the world’s leading arms exporters.
More significantly, the Australians have not shied-away from
the idea of their country becoming the geo-strategic lynchpin of a vast arc of
influence extending all the way from the Sea of Japan to the western shores of
the Indian Ocean. Linking the USA, Japan, Australia and India, this
“Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” is aimed directly at China’s much-vaunted
“One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) geopolitical initiative.
This is where New Zealand steps back into the diplomatic
quadrille.
The previous, National Party-led, government responded
swiftly and enthusiastically to OBOR. And why not? Years of inaction and
underspending – by both major parties – have left the nation’s infrastructure
in such a state of disrepair that fixing it up is now well beyond the
ideologically acceptable bounds of state intervention. The most willing
provider of this urgently-needed foreign investment is China. Though she is
well below the belt, and a long way off the road, New Zealand is, nevertheless,
determined to get her share of the trillions the Chinese are planning to spend
on global infrastructure.
Or, so it seemed, until Peters departed from the prepared
text of his Lowy speech to register his dismay at the speed with which the
previous New Zealand government had signed up to China’s OBOR initiative. “They
couldn’t have known exactly what it all meant”, interpolated the Foreign
Minister.
What was he thinking? That Beijing wouldn’t register his
unscripted remark? That references to New Zealand’s “strategic anxiety”
(vis-à-vis the evolving diplomatic situation in the South Pacific) would not be
interpreted by the Chinese foreign ministry as a thinly-disguised appeal for
increased American engagement in New Zealand’s “back-yard”?
Or, did Beijing interpret Peters’ remark as a minimal, but
necessary, concession to the strength of anti-Chinese feeling among senior
Australian politicians, military officers, diplomats and spies? Is Wellington
suspected of being too close to Beijing? Is this the reason for Canberra’s
rising exasperation at the failure of successive New Zealand governments to
re-equip their army, navy and air-force in a manner designed to both complement
and hasten Australia’s quest for regional hegemony?
If so, then the Australians are playing a sophisticated (and
sinister) geopolitical game. The more New Zealand’s armed forces are reconfigured
as an integral part of Australian force projection, the more New Zealand’s
capacity for diplomatic manoeuvre is constrained. A New Zealand Defence Force
geared-up to support the USA’s, Japan’s, Australia’s and India’s determination
to thwart the objectives of OBOR, has every reason to resist any political
and/or diplomatic attempt to maximise and preserve New Zealand’s geo-strategic
options.
If the Minister of Foreign Affairs is genuine in his desire
to “re-set” New Zealand’s diplomatic posture in the South Pacific, then his
every effort should be directed towards building relationships that owe as
little to Canberra and Washington as they do to Beijing.
As the Filipino-American novelist, Tess Uriza Holthe put it:
“When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful.” Let’s make the South
Pacific a Pachyderm-Free Zone.
This essay was
originally published in The Press of Tuesday,
6 March 2018.
