Okos agreement could push New Zealand to deepen ties with Europe and the Pacific | Pete McKenzie

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Announcing that America, the United Kingdom and Australia are forming a new defense agreement for Okos – inaugurated by the sale of US nuclear-powered submarines to Australia – was hailed by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison as “a partnership forever for a new period between the two countries’ oldest and most trusted of friends”.

This wording was notable given that the deal excluded New Zealand, which has historically been so close to Australia that the Australian constitution contemplates full integration between the two countries. Remarkably, the New Zealand government apparently only learned about the Aukus deal when it was first reported in the media on Wednesday.

It is the latest sign that New Zealand has been left behind by its traditional Anglosphere partners. Ironically, the widening gap between New Zealand’s authorities and the Okos was largely not of New Zealand’s choice, despite its longstanding commitment to foreign policy “independence.”

In the face of growing great-power competition between China and America, New Zealand has made some moves towards alignment with the latter. Over the past few years, it has purchased US military equipment, which China has explicitly named a threat to the rules-based international order and has refused to allow China’s Huawei to upgrade its 5G infrastructure due to security concerns. Recently, it has joined with America and others to openly condemn Chinese cyber-aggression. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has embraced the framing of the “Indo-Pacific” – a US attempt to rhetorically rebalance Asia away from China – as a response to the “more challenging geopolitics” of the Pacific.

But even as New Zealand took these steps, America, Britain and Australia moved more and more toward a more aggressive approach against China. America and Australia have revitalized the “Quadruple” partnership with Japan and India, with the tacit goal of restraining China.

America, Britain and Australia have also pushed for the Five Eyes partnership with Canada and New Zealand to expand beyond its traditional focus on intelligence gathering. Britain recently deployed naval ships in the Indo-Pacific, and Australia’s purchase of nuclear-powered submarines will allow them to take on a more powerful military role.

Aukus’ announcement sparked an unsurprisingly hostile reaction from China. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, denounced the Aukus deal as “completely irresponsible behaviour” and said it would “seriously harm regional peace and stability, exacerbate the arms race and harm international nuclear non-proliferation agreements.”

Faced with this increasingly confrontational relationship between America, Britain and Australia on the one hand and China on the other, New Zealand has been reluctant to go further than its former partners. Compared to other Anglosphere countries, it has maintained a relatively constructive approach to China (by far its largest trading partner). The result is an unmistakable gap between it and the Anglosphere nations with which it has historically allied – this is clearly evidenced by the fact that, in line with New Zealand’s longstanding nuclear-weapon-free policy, no new Australian nuclear-powered submarines will be allowed to enter a new area. Zealand water.

In fact, New Zealand’s approach is now more similar to a different “Western” grouping – the European Union – which has also taken a relatively independent stance toward Sino-American competition. In a policy paper released Thursday entitled The European Union’s Strategy for Indo-Pacific Cooperation, European leaders emphasized that they would cooperate with China as much as possible, while at the same time cooperating with other Indo-Pacific countries to constrain Chinese power and “undo fundamental differences. Exist with China.” like human rights. This attempt to balance America and China is in line with the “strategic autonomy” that French President Emmanuel Macron has said Europe should aim for.

This presents an opportunity: New Zealand could deepen its ties with partners like the European Union (and Canada, which has also been excluded from the Aukus Partnership) to partially offset the growing division within the Anglosphere. Moving away from largely white Anglo-Pacific nations could help New Zealand deepen ties with the Pacific nations whose foreign minister, Nana Mahuta, has previously promised to prioritize.

However, not by choice, New Zealand is increasingly being left behind by the countries it has been closest to in more than a century. As a result, the coming years will be a test of whether New Zealand will be able to navigate rising geopolitical tensions as the “independent” actor it has long claimed it will be, or whether it will be forced to choose a side emphatically.

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