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| Who To Follow? Helen Clark is one of the prime movers of Labour’s anti-nuclear policy, and principal author of New Zealand’s independent foreign policy. Andrew Little has come out swinging in favour of AUKUS Pillar 2. Helen Clark negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with China that has kept the New Zealand economy afloat through a global financial crisis and Covid-19. Andrew Little has cast our largest trading partner as a dangerous geopolitical disruptor in urgent need of Anglophone “containment”. |
MAYBE IT’S A GENERATIONAL THING? Andrew Little, born in 1965, qualifies (narrowly) as Generation X, while Helen Clark, born in 1950, is, indisputably, a Baby Boomer. Gen-Xers have a “thing” about Boomers, a strange mixture of envy and resentment, that manifests itself in their determination not to be seen following in their predecessors’ footsteps.
If Helen Clark was one of the prime movers of Labour’s anti-nuclear policy, and principal author of New Zealand’s independent foreign policy, then Andrew Little has come out swinging in favour of AUKUS Pillar 2. If Helen Clark negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with China that has kept the New Zealand economy afloat through a global financial crisis and Covid-19, then Andrew Little has cast our largest trading partner as a dangerous geopolitical disruptor in urgent need of Anglophone “containment”.
It is, if I may borrow a term made popular by Kamala Harris’ vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, “weird”.
More problematic, however, is Andrew Little’s support for the ideas of Professor Anne-Marie Brady, the Christchurch-based academic who has done so much to “recalibrate” this country’s relationship with China.
Just four years ago, Professor Brady and her colleagues from the “Small States and the New Security Environment” research team had this to say about what they saw as New Zealand’s geopolitical vulnerability:
“The global environment has not been so challenging for New Zealand since 1942 when British forces in Singapore, who were New Zealand’s shield, fell to the advance of the Japanese. New Zealand must now face up to the national security risk of the Covid-19 outbreak. The current situation poses a risk not only to New Zealand, but collectively, for our Pacific, Five Eyes and NATO partners, as well as like-minded states who uphold the international rules-based order.”
Scary stuff! Clearly, the Chinese have taken the place of the Japanese in this grim geostrategic scenario. And, one must presume that Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” project is the reincarnation of Imperial Japan’s “Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.
If New Zealand’s economic survival wasn’t at stake, this sort of re-heated Cold War rhetoric would be laughable.
But wait, there’s more. Six years ago, in 2018, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, one Winston Peters, addressed a high-powered Washington audience, before whom he announced New Zealand’s “Pacific Reset”. This, in part, is what Mr Peters (who just happens to be, once again, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister) had to say:
“The Pacific Reset […] reflects New Zealand’s response to the increasingly contested strategic environment in the Pacific in which more external actors are competing for influence. This calls for close cooperation with Pacific Island countries, Australia, the United States, and other partners with historic links in the region –countries such as Japan, the EU, UK and France – to uphold values that we share and want to promote in the region; values like democracy, good governance, greater women’s participation, and above all the rules based systems on which the region relies.”
It is surely no more than coincidence that the person who invited Mr Peters to address the Centre for Australian, New Zealand & Pacific Studies at Washington’s Georgetown University, was a fellow member of the same NATO-supported research team dedicated to assisting “small states” (like ours) navigate the “new security environment”, as Professor Brady.
Small states in a small world!
And guess who was the minister responsible for New Zealand’s national security (SIS & GCSB) when Winston was re-setting the Pacific at Georgetown in 2018, and Professor Brady was reminding us of the perils of being unprotected in that wide, wide sea, as Covid raged? That’s right, it was Andrew Little. The same bloke who, less than a year ago, became (briefly) New Zealand’s Minister of Defence.
All of which strongly suggests that the journey towards AUKUS, the weapons purchase agreement announced in September 2021, got underway at least three years before Messrs Biden, Sunak and Albanese started talking about equipping Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. Around the time that New Zealand prime-ministers started turning up as loyal friends of the West at NATO gatherings.
If all these moves and counter-moves make you feel that New Zealand is being pushed about like a pawn on somebody else’s chessboard, then “Congratulations!” – you have been paying attention.
And, whoever’s footsteps this younger generation of politicians are now following, they sure as hell ain’t Helen Clark’s.
This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 16 August 2024.
6 comments:
Methinks New Zealand's global policy stance has descended into a state of gullible bewilderment. Personally, I would disregard as bogus anything Professor Brady had to say on any topic, but especially China.
Let's start with the 'International Rules Based Order'. What does that mean? It means precisely this;
1: The United States makes the rules;
2: Everyone has to abide by the rules the US makes;
3: The United States is itself exempt from the rules the US makes, and any other rules any International Authority cares to enact;
4: The United States can make up new rules at any time, without notice, and even retroactively;
5: The United States can revoke any rules at any time, including retroactively;
6: The United States can issue and revoke licences of exemption to whomever it chooses.
Already in 1945, the US was setting itself up to be World Policeman - and already in 1945 it was causing some resentment. Since then the US has gone full spectrum global law enforcement:
World Judge
World Prosecuting Counsel
World Jury
World Lord High Executioner ...
... and all of them on the take.
It really amuses me to listen to the US, Australia, NATO, and even this country, lecture others on how they ought to behave (e.g. in the realm of human rights'), when none the above - including this country - have all that much to be proud of anent such behaviour (e.g. in the realm of human rights). I still recall this country's government, in the wake of a terrorist attack 10,000 miles distant 23 years ago placing constraints upon my freedoms. Not a flicker in the wake of terrorist acts carried out by the United States or its NATO lackeys.
'Who would sacrifice freedoms for the sake of a little security deserves neither the freedom, nor the security', according, I'm told, to Ben Franklin. How much more, then, ought we to despise those who, for the sake of their own security, would take from others their freedoms?
Western attitudes against the East, Middle East and Southern consists almost entirely of projection, and arise largely from paranoia. Precisely what 'threat' comes from China? Could it be from the 800 military bases China has failed to establish around the planet? Could it be all those countries China hasn't invaded, bombed, or de-stabilised? Perhaps we should allude to the heads of state and other government officials or political activists China hasn't murdered? Maybe we ought to take China to task for the treasure it hasn't stolen from other countries, such as Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Russia. I've no doubt I've left out a number of African nations China hasn't robbed.
Henry Kissinger was not merely giving vent to a 'bon mot' when he remarked: 'To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous; to be a friend is fatal.' If you want confirmation, ask Germany today.
Helen Clark at least had the mother wit to forge for this country its own road toward global affairs. Why anyone in this country should cleave to the US, whose 'International Rules Bases Order' the US itself has demonstrated to be worthless, whose 'exceptionalism' (Obama) has been shown to be vicious, whose 'Force for Good' (Obama, again) we discover to be 'Force for the Good of US Corporates; Everyone Else can go and get ... flost.'
Finally, what is so special about the (largely bogus) 'values' we brag about, but rarely observe (even when not inconvenient), that we must lecture other nations, whose priorities are different? Who or what gave us the right? Who or what gave the United States the right? No: force majeure is not good enough. It never was.
Cheers,
Ion A. Dowman
If all these moves and counter-moves make you feel that New Zealand is being pushed about like a pawn on somebody else’s chessboard, then “Congratulations!” – you have been paying attention.
And, whoever’s footsteps this younger generation of politicians are now following, they sure as hell ain’t Helen Clark’s.
...........
Chris Laidlaw. [2010]
How would you define a 21st Century New Zealander
Spoonley
Well that's not an easy one at all. Um I think we've been remaking ourselves through the 1970's and 80s. And what it's thrown up is that we've moved away from that colonial past where we were (essentially) monoculturural and monolinguial and we're moving into this 21st century.
......
The real question is: what does it mean to be a citizen of a country with no recognisable identity?
You are probably a somewhere or anywhere.
Somewhere: family> tribe> nation. Us (here); them (out there)
Anywhere: Oprah, Obama, Key, and Luxon (all own property in Hawaii) and the cultural socialist normative belief ("they are us)
The two postions (below):
“The global environment has not been so challenging for New Zealand since 1942 when British forces in Singapore, who were New Zealand’s shield, fell to the advance of the Japanese.
And
This calls for close cooperation with Pacific Island countries, Australia, the United States, and other partners with historic links in the region –countries such as Japan, the EU, UK and France –
are not inconsistent. Those Japanese are not these Japanese. As much as China "keeps us afloat", was it necessary that so many of them come and live here? I mean: hydro lakes and housing, housing, housing (Kerry McDonald's ticking bombs)?
I try to look at our nuclear position and our alliances in a simple way. Our thinking on things nuclear has changed over time. As a nation we don't fear things Nuclear in quite the same way as in the past. We understand that any objection to the use of nuclear power globally is meaningless, certainly to those outside NZ. Many within NZ as in Australia, can see a case for Nuclear power at some point in the future. War ships with nuclear weapons are a reality all around the globe. The fact that we don't want them in our ports is to me quaint virtue signalling.
Strangely it seems to me to have a political bias for and against, in that IMO, generally the left would be against any change in our stance. Helen Clark would be against any change because she was part of the anti nuclear lobby, but from my reading of right wing media her opinions usually seen via X and the like, are of diminishing importance. Those in the now, our current political leaders, and those who have an understanding of the issues, Like Peters, Luxon Andrew little and Hipkins and the like , will tread carefully but to my mind will always choose to align with AUKUS simply because we have no option. If we don't we will be seen as a pathetic virtue signalling little country that won't pay it's way but would still hope to be protected in the face of conflict. Of course we could always ask China for security against aggressors couldn't we. To not align with AUKUS because they may have a nuc on their ships is beyond naive. It's been thirty nine years since David Lange spoke in the Oxford debate. We need to move on. New politicians like Luxon are going to see the world for what it is not was. Those who have been around for the last ten or fifteen years like Little and Collins and over forty years like Peters, have licence to change their mind on issues because they have experienced first hand the changing world we live in. They have lived the past are living the present and are therefore most qualified to guide us into the future. My opinion and likely some won't agree.
Anyone who thinks Beijing poses no threat to New Zealand is either very stupid or very naive.
The CCP are known to operate clandestine "police stations" in countries that have large Chinese diaspora communities. Countries just like New Zealand. If we had not adopted a "let everyone in, no matter how shady their country is" immigration policy in 1987, we would not have a large Chinese diaspora community that is vulnerable to coercion by the CCP.
On a side note, we would not have a methamphetamine epidemic either. Triad members initially tried smuggling in heroin, but they quickly wound up in Mt Eden. While there, they established links with local gangs, which have since become local distributors for both Chinese Triads and Mexican drug cartels.
New Zealand has gone from being economically over-reliant on Britain to being over reliant on China. You don't have to be Metternich to see that we have gone from the frying pan into the fire.
What the solution to the problem of our economy being dependent on China and defence dependent on the USA , I do not know. My guess is, none of our foreign policy makers no either.
Suggestions anyone ?
Apparently it goes back a generation, to Tiananmen Square...
https://archive.is/6BwDb
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuT_sZRCcAAtUEo?format=jpg&name=medium
A well informed and thought provoking analysis ... of both the strategic position ... in passing ... plus a behind the scenes heads up on Little and presumably many of his other Kiwi socialist cobbers.
This suggests that as a whole ... leaving out the flakes ... that is the Green's and TPM et al ... the weight of empowered Kiwi pollies are right behind ANSUC ? ... or whatever the grandchild of ANZUS is acronymed these days
So when do we look to the horizon for the first sight of a USS surface ... or horrors ... a Nuc Sub! ,steaming up the Rangitoto Channel for the boys ashore to enjoy the steaming delights of K Rd?
On that day we may confidently announce " that the adults are back in charge".
And Hooray bloody Hooray ... for that.
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