Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has firmly aligned New Zealand’s foreign policy with the United States’ world view, “embracing" the phrase “Indo-Pacific" to describe the region.

The US, United Kingdom, and Australia are among countries that regularly use the phrase “Indo-Pacific”, wrapping India into a strategic picture of the Asia-Pacific region as a greater counter-weight against China’s growing influence. New Zealand has been a slow adopter of the term.

Ardern gave a foreign policy speech to an audience of diplomats and government officials at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs’ “Standing in the Future: New Zealand and the Indo-Pacific Region" conference, being held at Te Papa on Wednesday.

“New Zealand is not alone in adopting this Indo-Pacific outlook ... Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Germany have also referred to an Indo-Pacific region in reaction to more challenging geopolitics,” she said.

However, she said “Indo-Pacific” was often used to “exclude some nations from dialogue” – meaning China – but New Zealand would not use the phrase a “subtext for exclusion”.

Ardern said the world had entered an era of “formidable environmental, health and geopolitical difficulties” and countries across the world faced two paths: “isolationism and nationalism”, or “consensus of collective action”.

She said New Zealand wanted a world where there was respect for rules, consistency in international law, open trade and investment, and transparency in foreign policy objectives and “initiatives beyond borders”.

Among other serious concerns for New Zealand included the South China Sea, “including artificial island building, continued militarisation, and activities which pose risks to freedom of navigation and overflight”.

“Our success will depend on working with the widest possible set of partners,” she said. In forming a broad alliance, she said, countries must first apply their focus to the Covid-19 pandemic.

She said a “singular focus on vaccinating our own populations with little regard to others is a recipe for variance” in the Covid-19 virus – referring to the mutations of the virus which make it more transmissible or fatal.

New Zealand would be pushing for a new “pandemic treaty” between countries, she said, that would “improve global surveillance, validation and early response; and to strengthen the World Health Organisation”.

Ardern has in recent months been making overtures to the US, speaking via video-link to influential forums of decision makers. On Wednesday, she welcomed the Biden administration into the region.

“We look forward to working with the Biden administration on regional issues. New Zealand’s relationship with the United States has deep roots, built over many decades of cooperation. We share values and have common interests in how the region operates.”

A major player in the US President's administration, Kurt Campbell, beamed into the event to speak after Ardern. Campbell, a leading diplomat in the US, has been dubbed Biden’s “Asia czar” and has a strong connection to New Zealand.

“The Indo-Pacific is to some degree at an inflection point ... The forms of cooperation needed to overcome Covid-19 require countries to let go of narrow nationalistic approaches,” she said.

"Even during our dark periods, our challenging times we look to New Zealand for inspiration and motivation both as a model for how we can go about our own democracy but also for your leading role in international relations and global politics particularly in Pacific," he said.

"I'm grateful for the role New Zealand plays across the board ... In all our discussion with your excellent ambassador here and with other New Zealand representatives and diplomats there is a constant reminder of our role in supporting Australia and New Zealand.”

Campbell said some of China's diplomacy and economic activities seemed to go against global norms and values and there were concerns about some elements of Chinese power and some of its aspirations in the Indo-Pacific.

"Our ultimate goal is the maintenance of peace and stability in Asia,” he said.

"We are determined to maintain that peace and stability through careful engagements, through deterrence, through necessary military actions and through engagements with partners who share our interests."

He wanted to see New Zealand take a stronger role in the Pacific such as controlling illegal fishing; engagement and security and even taking on peacekeeping.

"Probably the country that needs to do more is not New Zealand, it is the United States.”

He said that maintaining the current status quo across the Taiwan Straits – a flashpoint of tension between Taiwan and China in the South China Sea – is in the best interests of all countries.