We should learn from how the Pacific has navigated between superpowers
Thursday, 2 June 2022
Josie Pagani has worked in politics, aid and development. In 2011, she stood as a Labour candidate in Rangitikei.
OPINION: The Beehive’s press release on our new joint statement with the US doesn’t mention China once, which is odd because the actual joint statement mentions China a lot, from human rights violations in Xinjiang to its activity in the South China Sea.
Obviously, the US pushed New Zealand into a more provocative position on China, which we are less enthusiastic about when the statement was in New Zealand’s name alone.
We're a small country trying not to pick sides between two superpowers while standing up for our values.
The ancient island of Melos was famously wiped out in a power struggle between the superpowers of Athens and Sparta, in a lesson for small countries that has survived the ages: When we pick sides we may pick the wrong one, or we may get very little in return for our choice.
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**
We haven't received much in return from the US for joining its chest-thumping on China. China is mad at us. But the US has not moved an inch towards the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.
New Zealand is walking a tightrope. We align with the US values of democracy, and human rights, but we align with China more on trade. China gives us something the US hasn’t: market access.
Larger powers have had a lot of advice for the Pacific about China’s role, but, instead of offering advice, we should be humble enough to learn from a region that has been figuring out how to navigate the superpower squeeze for longer than we have.
The Pacific has decided that China has a role in the region whether we like it or not. China is offering the Pacific not just security but trade, access to Chinese markets, infrastructure, and more Covid vaccines.
They are asking us to help them get the best deals without increasing their debt. That help is more valuable to the Pacific than lectures.
The new Labor government in Australia has recognised the Pacific as the latest global frontier.
The Australian Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, has made two trips to the Pacific in her first nine days on the job. Our foreign affairs minister has been to the Pacific only once, to Fiji. Covid hasn’t helped, but if we want to convince our Pacific cousins that we have more to offer than China, then conversations need to be in person, fast, and much more frequently.
Australia's new PM, Anthony Albanese, said, “We’ll be proactive in the region, and we want to engage.” Does New Zealand, really?
We can join up with Australia and support Samoa’s call for a regional response to China’s offers, because a united Pacific, like a united Europe, is stronger.
It’s good that our prime minister wound back her earlier ‘’grave concerns’’ at Pacific countries signing deals with China in our ‘backyard’. The Pacific is not our backyard, just as Ukraine is not Russia’s.
Prime Minister Fiame of Samoa is free to sign an exchange of letters with China for a fingerprint laboratory for police if she wants.
But we can work strategically with partners who share our values, to begin fixing our multilateral system. The postwar multilateral system designed to manage a post-colonial, Cold War world has proven through the war in Ukraine, and the response to Covid, that reform is needed.
Start with the United Nations.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine underlined the impotence of the UN Security Council. The veto power granted by Article 27 of the UN Charter to each of the council’s permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) means Russia has been able to veto any UN action to protect Ukrainians.
Liechtenstein – the sixth-smallest country in the world, with a population of about 40,000 – has successfully tabled a General Assembly resolution to break that veto.
We should support the campaign. Demand a new clause to allow a double majority – at least two-thirds of member countries and two-thirds of the world’s population – to override a veto.
Work with liberal democracies to make tax havens illegal. That would deal to the oligarchs and kleptocrats like President Vladimir Putin. As the author Anne Applebaum says, ‘’The only people who need to keep their houses, businesses, and income secret are crooks and tax cheats.’’
Link human rights abuses to the globalised trading system. We can’t force China to stop herding Uyghurs into concentration camps for ‘’re-education’’. But we can be part of a global group that makes access to the advantages of globalisation dependent on minimum standards of good global citizenship.
The geopolitics of the world are changing fast, and we are suddenly in a region where superpowers are paying attention. We don’t need to pick between titans. Nor do we need to wait until attacked to stand up for a system of global trade and negotiation that better reflects our values.