New Zealand’s diplomats will prioritise Pacific Island nations’ resilience due to threats such as climate change and potentially “catastrophic” levels of Chinese debt.
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta told the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs on Wednesday the Government was now shifting its $700 million “Pacific Reset” policy to explicitly focus on partnering with Pacific nations on resilience projects.
Though much of Mahuta’s speech echoed existing policies, signalling little tangible change, foreign policy watchers say it further cements an ideological shift that is changing how New Zealand operates in the Pacific.
“This isn't about money. This is about ways of working ... It is about using the current pathways of negotiating, for example, development assistance, to take a partnership approach,” Mahuta said after the speech.
“For example: what is the benefits of engaging in broader research collaborations with the Pacific to support their aspiration of diversifying economic opportunity? What would that look like?”
Anna Powles, a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University, said Mahuta was clearly committed to changing New Zealand’s diplomacy engagements from a paternalistic approach to a partnership approach.
“To truly be successful in the Pacific we have long needed this ideational shift,” Powles said. “It’s very much about partnership – Pacific Island countries identifying what their priorities are and New Zealand supporting them to achieve these.”
She said while Mahuta had expressed the right sentiment and commitment, how that translates on the ground remains to be seen.
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The Pacific Reset – a hallmark policy of the prior Labour-coalition Government – came during a time when nations including Australia, the United Kingdom, and Japan made comparable investments.
The increasing interest in the region was a response to what New Zealand officials described as “heightened strategic competition”, including the rising influence of China, and the growing threats of climate change and economic fragility.
These challenges have continued to grow, pushing countries to increase in military presence and money spent in the region, as Western nations try to counter China’s presence in the region and retain existing relationships.
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated concern about the Pacific’s economic future. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade briefing paper from November 2020 said economic decline caused by the pandemic “will likely erase several years of progress in economic development and poverty reduction”.
Mahuta said in her speech Covid-19 had “stressed the region’s resilience” during a time in which there was more competition in the region than ever before.
“There is without a doubt a reality that we are all having to observe that the whole of the Indo-Pacific region have quite a strategic area where big powers are now exercising their influence and interest,” she said.
Asked afterward about China’s increasing influence in the region, Mahuta said she was concerned at the “way in which investment in the Pacific is occurring, and creating quite a significant level of economic vulnerability and debt”.
“I'm really concerned that without a concerted effort around building the medium- to long-term resilience of Pacific economies, not only are they vulnerable to climate change, but they are vulnerable to increasing debt levels, that will set their people back in some quite catastrophic ways, potentially.”
Debt ratio for many Pacific countries have risen significantly over the past decade with a number of countries debt levels reaching worrying levels.
The Government's “resilience” approach would mean talking to like-minded partners – a term which usually means the likes of Australia, the UK, and the United States – to bolster “a Pacific way”.
“It's an approach that we understand well in New Zealand. I'm not saying we've got it perfect, but it's an approach that we understand and that is necessary.”
Oxfam Aotearoa Communications and Advocacy Director Joanna Spratt said the approach had a lot of potential, but there would be challenges in changing the way New Zealand interacts with its Pacific neighbours.
“There is a bit in the speech about trying to get more cultural diversity and cultural competency and knowledge of the Pacific, but it’s going to take a lot more than that, I think, to really embed, quite sophisticated values based approach based on relationships,” Spratt said.
Mahuta said the recently announced new defence pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – dubbed AUKUS – was a “significant move” for the region.
The AUKUS pact has Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines from the UK and US in the coming decades, in a bid to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. The build up in military hardware in the region has been met with some concern in the region by those worried that it could lead to an escalation.
“We welcome interest in our region, and the overriding ambition for our region extending across the Indo-Pacific reflected by ASEAN is that a more peaceful, prosperous, stable region is in our shared interests, and I overwhelmingly agree with that,” Mahuta said.
National Party foreign affairs spokesman Gerry Brownlee said former foreign minister Winston Peters put “big effort” into the Pacific Reset, and Mahuta in her speech repeated the Government’s existing work under a new title
Mahuta’s speech was “delivered in the context of AUKUS, which we're shut out of ... in the context of New Zealand acknowledging that to meet our carbon emission targets we're going to have to buy carbon credits elsewhere ... and it's also against the background of the debacle over the Pacific Island Forum, which is still not resolved,” he said
