Dialogue: Little place for Cold War loyalties in Asia policy

During her visit to north-east Asia, Helen Clark will focus on economic matters. But she should not make light of security issues, writes TERENCE O'BRIEN*.


The profile of New Zealand foreign policy in north-east Asia will be lifted by the 10-day prime ministerial visit to Japan, Hong Kong and China that begins tomorrow.

This will be followed shortly by an official visit to Korea. The Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministers have both visited these countries but, compared with the high-level atmospherics before, during and after the 1999 Auckland Apec summit, our foreign policy in the region has, over the past year, been more muted, with the emphasis on issues such as human rights.

Helen Clark will be accompanied by a business delegation, indicating that trade and economic relations are central to the trip. Yet Asian and American economies may be slowing sharply, and the prospect of further trade liberalisation at the global level in the wake of the Seattle World Trade Organisation debacle and similar events remains dim.

Japan, China and Korea are exhibiting greater interest in regionalism and greater trade liberalisation within north-east Asia. Moreover, the idea for an overall East Asian free trade area is to be studied in the so-called Asean Plus Three framework, encompassing all East Asian governments on the Pacific rim.

Ideas for mutual currency support, as well as cooperative exchange rate systems, are in the wind, alongside an early-warning mechanism to prevent economic crises. The impetus is derived largely from Japan's recovery package for the region following the 1997-98 crisis.

It is important to realise that there is no overarching strategy within East Asia driving these trends. It is not like Europe - there is little evidence, for instance, of coordination between developments in finance and trade.

But the atmosphere is changing, and events elsewhere - such as a serious commitment by the United States at the summit of the Americas this month to complete a free trade area of the Americas - would certainly concentrate Asian minds further.

New Zealand's first commitment is to an open, liberal, global free trade system, and Helen Clark will want to register that point, as well as the relevance of established Apec targets.

Nonetheless, the fashioning of more explicit links of economic partnership with Hong Kong (where New Zealand is the first country to signal its intentions and where Hong Kong, for its own wider trade policy interests with China, has an expressed interest) and with Japan seems prudent economic diplomacy in such times, when regionalism is in the wind.

Last October, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs secretary, Neil Walter, suggested to business leaders that the time was right to explore a framework for closer economic partnership with Japan. No follow-up has been evident inside New Zealand, either politically or commercially.

Japan has, of course, larger fish to fry, as well as uncertain political leadership. But the prime ministerial visit offers the best opportunity for New Zealand to try to add some dimension.

Helen Clark's north-east Asian visit occurs against a political background of significant deterioration in China-US relations, created by the aerial surveillance incident in the South China Sea. The restoration and maintenance of normality depend vitally on the wisdom of both governments.

For China, the incident and its background has rekindled a traditional fear of humiliation by a foreign power. For the US, it provides a stern test of the new President's mettle.

In the short period since taking office, and before the South China Sea incident, President Bush moved in ways that heralded strategic tension for US relations with China, which he depicts as a competitor of America, rather than a partner.

Imminent decisions about the installation of a missile defence system to protect the US and its interests in the region, and about US arms sales to Taiwan, lend an adversarial complexion to Sino-US relations and certainly account for Chinese attitudes following the aerial incident.

For its part, Japan cannot contemplate any serious deterioration with equanimity, given a traditional concern not to become a simple hostage to American China policy.

President Bush's uncompromising assertion in relation to the Korean Peninsula, that US security interests effectively outweigh South Korea's notable investment in a reconciliation process with the North, must have gravely disappointed the South. Reactions from the North are, as ever, unpredictable.

In the US itself, respected commentators have speculated that the new policy thrust is designed to hamper the reconciliation process, lest it remove the stated justification for the missile defence system - the existence of a dangerous North Korean missile threat to the US.

Such issues may not (all) figure in the Prime Minister's formal talks, but in informal exchanges, Helen Clark will be expected to convey an indication of New Zealand's thinking.

Her first preoccupation is clearly with economic matters, but New Zealand has surely learned that it cuts little mustard in Asian capitals to concentrate upon its own economic interests at the expense of the political-security preoccupations of regional governments.

The Foreign Minister, Phil Goff, has just returned from Washington after his first meetings with the new Bush Administration.

That is another reason Helen Clark should be expected to delineate New Zealand's concerns over missile proliferation and, equally, to state its misgivings about missile defence as the right response, to restate its One China position over Taiwan and to reaffirm its support for Korean reunification.

Having, with South Korea's active encouragement, just opened diplomatic relations with North Korea, New Zealand is firmly committed to reconciliation. Normalisation of American relations with the North is, however, clearly on hold.

At a time the new US Administration seems to be reviving some deeply imbued Cold War instincts, the skill with which New Zealand positions itself on issues with undeniable ramifications for Asia-Pacific security management is important.

In the period ahead, it will be vital to keep open New Zealand diplomatic channels to all Asian governments to share perceptions.

Cold War loyalties cannot now determine responses in ways they might previously have done. The north Asian trip is the Prime Minister's biggest foreign policy test yet.

* Terence O'Brien is a teaching fellow at Victoria University's school of politics and international relations.