New Zealand has opened the door to joining the Aukus defence pact with Australia, Britain and the United States while maintaining its ban on nuclear-powered submarines.
The country’s top diplomat in Canberra said New Zealand could join the agreement to collaborate on the development of emerging cyber technologies including artificial intelligence quantum computing.
New Zealand’s high commissioner to Australia, Dame Annette King, said Aukus in no way changed the security and intelligence ties New Zealand had with Australia, the US and Britain.
While New Zealand would never be involved in the development of nuclear-powered submarines, King said it welcomed the US and Britain’s increased engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We have reiterated our collective objective to deliver peace and stability in our region and the preservation of an international rules-based system,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in a wide-ranging interview ahead of New Zealand hosting the Apec summit’s leaders’ meeting next month.
Britain’s departing Chief of the Defence Staff, Nicholas Carter, last week suggested the trilateral security pact could be expanded to include other allies such as Japan, New Zealand and Canada.
Asked whether New Zealand would like to join Aukus to collaborate on other technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, she said: “It’s been made clear to us that other countries are going to be welcome to be involved in other parts of the architecture”.
“And cyber is one area that we’d certainly be interested in, but there’s no detail yet – so we will be looking for detail.”
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When the Aukus agreement was announced last month, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed that any nuclear-powered submarines Australia acquired under the initiative would not be allowed into her country’s territorial waters.
New Zealand is hosting the Apec summit’s leaders’ meeting next month, where the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic will be top of the agenda.
The country, which has been hosting Apec meetings for months, has already secured agreements among members to slash tariffs on vaccines, protective masks, syringes and soap, and create an “express lane” so vaccines are no longer tied up in customs for days.
New Zealand has been focused on revitalising Apec after a damaging economic spat between China and the United States derailed the summit in 2018, with leaders from 21 nations around the Pacific Rim failing to agree on a united message.
King said Apec was still an important global body because it brought together the “major powers of the world along with the minions like ourselves”.
“So I think that it does have a very important role to play in bringing people together to sit down and talk about the issues,” she said.
She also reiterated New Zealand’s opposition to having to repatriate a suspected member of the Islamic State terrorist group who grew up in Australia.
New Zealand reluctantly agreed to take Suhayra Aden after Australia cancelled her citizenship under its anti-terrorism laws. Ardern said in February that Australia had “abdicated its responsibilities” by stripping her citizenship.
“I can’t comment on her, other than to say it’s publicly known that she has been [repatriated] with her children to New Zealand,” King said.
“Our Prime Minister has reiterated on a number of occasions that the stripping of her citizenship by Australia – we don’t agree with.”
King said the two countries have now agreed to work together if there are any similar issues in the future.
