In Donald Trump’s inaugural address, he declared the US “will once again consider itself a growing nation – one that increases our wealth, expands our territory … and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons”. Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and a depopulated Gaza have all been identified as potential acquisitions for this new imperial project.
Trump’s supporters argue his administration is merely adjusting to reality – that the “rules-based” international order of sovereign nations that followed World War II, and which peaked after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is now obsolete.
New Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated in an interview that the liberal democratic framework imposed by US military and economic power in recent decades was an anomaly – “a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet”.
The US is now asserting itself as an openly expansionist regime aggressively pursuing its own self-interest, just like its geopolitical rivals, Russia and China. All that is solid melts into air.
New Zealand’s place in this rapidly emerging new world order is very unclear. It would be nice to pretend that nothing has changed and remain detached, enjoying our splendid isolation in the remote South Pacific and selling milk powder to whoever wants it.
Warning signs
But our deteriorating relationship with the Cook Islands is an ominous warning that we will not be exempt from this era of global instability. The Cooks have been self-governing since 1965. New Zealand takes responsibility for defence and aspects of its foreign policy, and subsidises development and some public services, primarily via our aid budget.
Under a 2001 joint declaration, both nations are required to consult on defence and security issues. But Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown’s visit to Beijing to sign a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with China, the details of which he refuses to disclose, threatens that relationship.
Brown insists the partnership is none of New Zealand’s business; that it relates to infrastructure, trade and tourism rather than defence issues. Brown is a democratically elected leader but there’s no evidence he has a mandate for such a radical realignment in foreign policy. Tina Browne, leader of the opposition Democratic Party has described his state visit as “insane”.
China has been expanding its influence across the Pacific for decades. It uses development and aid to advance its diplomatic and security interests – as do Australia and New Zealand; as did the US until Trump and Elon Musk moved this month to dismantle its international aid organisation.
China’s aid has acquired a certain infamy: it often comes as loans rather than donations, constructing large infrastructure projects – typically sports stadiums – that small Pacific nations cannot maintain, at repayment rates their economies cannot afford, a practice known as “debt trap diplomacy”.
In 2022, the Solomon Islands – heavily exposed to Chinese debt – signed a secret security agreement which was subsequently leaked to Australian media.
It granted China the right to station its forces in the Solomons’ territorial waters, and for the government of the Solomons to request Chinese police or military assistance.
In 2023, China dispatched police and equipment to Vanuatu in response to a constitutional crisis, triggered by its government signing a security pact with Australia.
Vanuatu and the Solomons are sovereign nations: the status of the Cook Islands is more ambiguous. It is self-governing, but its citizens hold New Zealand citizenship, its currency is the NZ dollar, it relies on us for exports, tourism and remittances from its diaspora. We’re responsible for its defence arrangements.
Diplomatic crisis
If Brown’s partnership agreement even vaguely resembles China’s arrangement with the Solomons – or if it opens up its territorial waters to China’s fishing fleet, heavily integrated with the People’s Liberation Army Navy – it will trigger a diplomatic crisis. China’s navy is the largest in the world. New Zealand lost a survey vessel when it ran aground in Samoa and cannot afford to replace it. If New Zealand cuts off aid to the region, Beijing will cheerfully make up the difference.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made his displeasure known, but the coalition government will have to do more than bluster. It has some difficult strategic calculations to make, and will have to make them quickly.
National and New Zealand First are fiercely pro-US and won’t want to appear weak in the eyes of our traditional allies – but it’s not clear that the US remains a traditional ally. We assume it is, but Canada and Denmark thought so, too.
Our steel and aluminium exports are already attracting tariffs imposed by Trump. Can we afford to antagonise China to remain on side with such a mercurial and amoral defence partner?
Labour also has awkward decisions to make. Nanaia Mahuta, foreign minister in the previous government, recently declared on social media, “The Cook Islands have a strong sense of who they are and what they value as a PIC [Pacific Island Country]. It’s paternalistic for NZ to think that the government should be consulted prior to engagements with China or the US. Regionalism requires relationship and respect.”
Does Labour’s commitment to indigenous self-determination and anti-colonialism compel it to allow China to expand its military influence in the region unopposed?
Panama withdrew from its infrastructure relationship with China this week. It was the first nation in the Americas to enter into such an arrangement, but it capitulated to threats of economic sanctions from the US.
New Zealand and Australia could bring similar pressure to bear on our neighbours in the South Pacific. It is not how either nation likes to imagine itself – we are good liberal democracies, respecting the integrity of their elected governments and the values and norms of the liberal international order.
But can we afford to diligently follow the rules of an order that is being dismantled before our very eyes?
