OPINION: Despite claims that a new strategic alliance between Australia, the UK, and US (Aukus) had marginalised New Zealand, there are indications this development could bolster the significance of Wellington’s non-nuclear stance in countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The Aukus pact envisages the sharing of information in key technological areas, including artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, to uphold the “international rules-based order” against the apparent threat of China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

As a first major initiative under the Aukus banner, the US and UK have pledged to support Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for its navy over the next 18 months.

On the face of it, Aukus does not sit comfortably with New Zealand’s non-nuclear security policy. This has been legally binding since the fourth Labour Government introduced the New Zealand Nuclear Free​ Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987​.

While New Zealand’s embrace of a non-nuclear policy led to strained relations with the US for two decades, it had the effect of deepening Wellington’s defence ties with Australia during this period, and ultimately did not prevent the restoration of a close US-New Zealand security partnership following the Wellington and Washington declarations of 2010 and 2012.

 

At the same time, New Zealand played a significant diplomatic role in the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons​ (TPNW) at the United Nations General Assembly on July 7, 2017. The treaty seeks to eliminate all nuclear weapons, and came into force on January 22 this year. To date, 86 states have signed the treaty and 54 have ratified it.

Australia has not joined the TPNW, which requires parties not to develop, test, acquire, possess or threaten to use nuclear weapons. Scott Morrison’s government has said the treaty would be at odds with its alliance with the US, the world’s leading nuclear weapon power.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Aukus does not change New Zealand’s role in the intelligence-sharing arrangement known as the Five Eyes alliance, and would not affect “our close partnership with Australia on defence matters”.

Nevertheless, New Zealand’s omission from Aukus has fuelled a narrative that Wellington has been diminished by its non-nuclear stance and its independent foreign policy, particularly in relation to China.

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A senior Pentagon official was quoted in The Australian as calling Aukus a “new Anzus that sidelines New Zealand, cements Australia’s alliance with the US in the 21st century and offers the stealth, speed and manoeuvrability to counter any Chinese threat to stability in the Indo-Pacific region”.

Brent Sadler, a senior fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the US Heritage Foundation, said New Zealand would have to deal with the consequences of being independent at a time when it was important for allies to maintain unity in the face of the China challenge.

So are the critics right? The basic problem facing Aukus is that it is based on a binary assumption that the fate of the Indo-Pacific rests on US-China great power rivalry and, in particular, on the capacity of America and its closest allies to counterbalance Chinese assertiveness in the region.

But while states like Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam remain deeply concerned about China’s activities in the Indo-Pacific, it does not mean they see Aukus, an enhanced security arrangement involving three English-speaking states – two of whom have had difficult historical links with the region – as the answer to this problem.

Moreover, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) such as Indonesia and Malaysia have publicly condemned the prospect of Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines while Singapore, a close ally of Australia, has also expressed concerns.

Sensitivities on nuclear proliferation in the Indo-Pacific are very real. In 1995, Asean member states signed the Treaty of Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone​, which was intended to keep nuclear weapons out of the region. Moreover, Singapore is the only Asean state that has yet to sign or ratify the TPNW.

 

In many ways then, New Zealand’s adherence to a non-nuclear security strategy is hardly a case of appeasing China. On the contrary, Wellington’s stance is a good fit with widespread concerns in the region about nuclear proliferation, and helps to undercut President Xi Jinping’s self-serving narrative that China would “protect” this vital region from a new Cold War unleashed by the Aukus states.

Furthermore, at a time when there are growing signs of a fierce power struggle in Beijing between Xi and some powerful factions and people within the ruling Chinese Communist Party, it is important for New Zealand to maintain some distance from an Aukus strategy that risks boosting Xi’s nationalist position at home and angering a number of significant states in the Indo-Pacific region.

Luke Hazelton is a graduate of the Master of International Studies (MIntSt) programme, University of Otago

Robert G. Patman is a Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chair and a specialist in International Relations at the University of Otago

This article partly draws on a published piece in The Big Q, University of Auckland.