How should New Zealand respond to China’s increasing involvement with our Pacific Island neighbours?
Some say with China being our largest trading partner, we should not say or do anything which could upset our trading relationship and economic prosperity. An opposing view concerned about China’s growing political and military influence in our region of the Pacific, prefer that we sign up to the new anti-China Aukus military alliance with Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
It has been amusing to watch New Zealand leaders squirming on the world media stage, both relating warmly to China, while simultaneously moving towards Western military alliances (even Nato). This dancing on a pinhead has required carefully worded statements to avoid offence to both China and our Western alliance friends.
A contextual factor for New Zealand is our geographical location in the southwest Pacific. Our neighbours, apart from Australia, are small island states, including Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Solomons, Kiribati, Niue, Tokelau and Tuvalu.
China’s increasing development assistance to our island neighbours has raised serious concerns. So much so, that over the past year, New Zealand, Australia and the US have initiated a flurry of diplomatic visits to the islands, to somehow counter the emerging Chinese relationships. Perhaps this could be called the race for the Pacific.
The Solomon Islands is a good example. China has agreed to provide resourcing and police training, and is looking to construct a new mutually beneficial port facility. Again, it’s been somewhat amusing to hear New Zealand leaders trying to divert the Solomons away from China.
And yet, the New Zealand Army has only just completed almost three years of "on-location" support to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force — very similar to the proposed China programme.
There are a number of critical observations to make.
The Pacific Island countries are sovereign entities. They can form mutually beneficial development, trade and security arrangements with whom they like.
In fact, New Zealand has modelled exactly that through trade with China. I spoke personally with a Tongan NGO development leader earlier this year and he clearly expressed that Tonga could and would choose whom it related to, traded with and received assistance from.
Does New Zealand have any right to be concerned about China’s so-called Pacific expansion? China is just as much a Pacific-based country as New Zealand and our traditional Western allies are. China, like every other country, has its own interests and priorities to work out on the regional and global stage.
Certainly the US has a very strong trade, diplomatic and military presence in the Pacific, so why not China? This would seem to be more about the "clash of civilisations" written about by Samuel Huntington (1996).
If New Zealand for any reason wants to help reduce China’s presence and influence with our Pacific Island neighbours, it is quite impossible that our minuscule military could have any impact. China’s military is so large, modern military technology so expensive and New Zealand’s economy so small.
If we wish to encourage Pacific Island countries to remain (or become?) mutually aligned with us in a regional association, our best contribution will be through mutually agreed aid and development funding and skills.
This would typically focus on improving education and literacy, economic development and livelihoods, primary healthcare, human rights and gender equality, environmental care and disaster risk reduction and response. Pacific Island countries also focus on developing agribusiness for domestic consumption and export, clean energy and climate change adaptation.
New Zealand is ideally placed geographically to assist with these development activities, but we have a critical and chronic aid funding problem.
New Zealand’s current overseas development assistance (ODA) reached a historical high of $1.4 billion in 2023, or 0.34% of gross national income (GNI), or 34 cents for every $100 in the New Zealand economy.
Even this was well short of the 0.7% agreed to by the United Nations in 1970. New Zealand’s ODA ranks 26th out of 30 OECD countries. The development assistance countries’ (DAC) average ODA at present is 0.43% of GNI, or 43 cents for every $100. About 50% of New Zealand’s ODA is spent in the Pacific.
However, the increasing ODA path all came to a predictable end with the shift from the left to the right at the New Zealand October 2023 elections, with the final death blow confirmed by the Budget. Despite an urgent pre-Budget call from the New Zealand aid and development collective to increase our ODA to 0.5%, the ODA trajectory is now all downhill, predicted to be only 0.2% of GNI, or 20 cents for every $100 by 2026-27, a 35% decrease.
New Zealand’s 2024 ODA budget means we will be spending more on pothole repair than assistance for overseas communities fighting poverty, disasters and climate change.
New Zealand has big decisions to make. Will we substantially increase our military budget and join the anti-Chinese Aukus military alliance, hoping to decrease China’s influence in the Pacific, while also hoping China will remain our biggest trading partner?
Or will we reinstate or even increase (imagine that) our overseas development assistance budget to a more humane level, enabling a mutually beneficial aid and development alliance with our Pacific Island neighbours with whom we share the southwest Pacific?
If we don’t work together with our Pacific Island neighbours, the Chinese will.
Perhaps a better visual metaphor than dancing on a pin to describe New Zealand’s vacillation between China and the predominantly US-driven Aukus is "dancing in the dragon's jaws".
But in this case there are two dragons with very sharp teeth. If only Kiwis could fly.
• Julian Doorey is a Dunedin international development consultant.
