The art of diplomacy: ‘You need to be advocating all the time’

Saturday, 8 June 2024

In a sense, entering Chanakyapuri’s diplomatic enclave is a bit like leaving New Delhi behind.

The streets become wider, more manicured; the heavy duty gates, armoured vehicles and guards are omnipresent. Gone are the monkeys, tuktuks, crowds. Turn on to Sir Edmund Hillary Marg and you’ll almost immediately think, wow, the New Zealand High Commission sure is nice.

But it turns out the intricately detailed pagoda-like structure at the end of the street is simply part of the Royal Bhutanese Embassy. To the right, almost missable, is the New Zealand High Commission, a peach-sand coloured building that serves as the commission’s base.

The commission has long had a presence in India. Diplomatic ties began in 1950 off the back of World War II when New Zealand forces fought alongside India (the story goes that lean NZ soldiers struggling with rations were helped out by Indians who shared their roti).

A New Zealand High Commission opened in New Delhi in 1958, and some will remember Sir Edmund Hillary serving as High Commissioner from 1985 to 1988. Then a celebrity in both countries, Sir Ed is the ultimate example of using charisma and clout to further bilateral relationships.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat), Sir Ed is said to have asked then Prime Minister David Lange - also well liked in India - what he was supposed to do in the job. “Do whatever you think best,” was the reported reply.

“He's seen as a remarkable personality here in India,” High Commissioner to India Patrick Rata, just weeks into the job, says from an air-conditioned, Kiwiana decored meeting room off to the side of the commission’s entrance.

I’m curious to know if any stories about Sir Ed’s time have been handed down over the years - he’s described by Mfat as the conduit to a “significant warming” of relations with India, although Sir Ed would later describe himself as a “lousy ambassador in the professional sense but feel I am warmly received in India … this could possibly be of benefit”.

“He's well known, well acknowledged throughout Delhi, but throughout India, for the contributions he's made,” Rata responds. But even without a bit of lore, the lesson is obvious, and one that Rata, and many others before him, goes on to explicitly acknowledge: celebrity-dom and sporting heroism is a fantastic hack for winning over, well, just about anybody.

“For our part in the High Commission we'll look to see if we can engage with these personalities and invite them to help us in our efforts to lift up the relationship,” says Rata.

Specifically in India, where young men play cricket wherever they can find room, whether that’s on a busy street or on an empty field flanked by motorways, and can rattle off the names of Black Caps as well as a laundry list of their best attributes, the sport is a common language the two countries can bond over.

Says Rata, deadpan: “I've noticed a significant passion for cricket. Something I'm going to have to adjust to.” Not a cricket fan? “I have been for some considerable number of weeks.”

Rata this week presented his “Letters of Credence” in Delhi - Mfat-speak for presenting for duty before India’s officials, though he’s been in his new posting since April, having taken over the role from David Pine. Essentially the two job-swapped, with Pine heading to Sri Lanka to take up Rata’s former posting, an apparently unique movement within the career diplomat world.

Rata, though, enters India with a weight of expectation on his shoulders. From the get-go the National-led Government has made clear its intentions to strengthen its relationship with India, with the aim of securing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) before the end of its three-year term. So, the clock is ticking.

To show their seriousness, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Trade Minister Todd McClay jumped on planes to see their counterparts, in the case of McClay even before 2023 was out, and more visits are planned this year. Rata speaks of “creating the right conditions” for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to arrive.

In between those bilaterals, though, it’s the on-the-ground work of Rata and his staff that will front-end that effort. Rata confirms there is no doubt in his mind that the Government, and the public, have, and should have, high expectations of him.

“For example, when Minister Peters concluded his recent visit here to India, he issued a press release where he made it clear not only to myself and my colleagues, but also to the public, that he wants to see the effort. He wants to see the relationship lifted.

“The minister has been very clear that New Zealand can, should, will do better in its relationship with India. And there's been clear signalling that the way that we want to achieve this uplift is by looking across all facets of the bilateral relationship and looking for opportunities where we can deepen our ties with India and demonstrate our relevance.”

The diplomatic dance means identifying opportunities for regular and ongoing high level contacts between the two governments, and Rata is hoping to see visitors from India travel to New Zealand. It also means supporting NZ businesses operating in India, or those who are interested in operating there - Rata has heard they too, naturally, are eager to see the relationship improve.

For Kiwis, India is a vast, complicated behemoth with the commonly held advice being that it can be tricky to find a way in, but, in the same vein as a bilateral relationship, “where companies are prepared to put in the long term effort and time, it can produce dividends,” says Rata.

India is one of the world's fastest growing economies. It has the 5th largest GDP, on track to overtake Germany and Japan, including a fast-growing middle class that represents opportunity for businesses around the world. Two-way trade with New Zealand is worth more than $2.5b.

While reduced or removed tariffs are an obvious business advantage for any trade deal or agreement, briefing documents for the newly inked trade minister show plenty of items on NZ’s wishlist, including cooperation on agriculture (India has a strong dairying and agriculture industry), increased tourism opportunities, easier visa and migration for Indians, increased partnerships in the education sector, and a direct flight between the two countries - the latter of which Rata says could be “transformational” for the relationship.

What else? “New Zealand and India both have a shared interest in a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, and I think that there could be opportunities for good dialogue between our two countries. So our High Commission will be seeing if we can facilitate those discussions and dialogues.”

Rata wants to be “ambitious” in the contacts he makes and plans to see if he can have, at his level, the opportunity to engage with newly elected for his third term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Certainly, we'll be seeking it out. I haven't been here long enough to know if those efforts will be successful, but certainly any opportunity that we can get to put ourselves in front of Indian leaders, we'll be taking.”

Rata isn’t shying away from the challenge, he says. When he applied for the role he “could see that New Zealand's interest in India was gaining new momentum”.

“So it's exciting for me that my arrival here coincides with a time when our Government has clearly signalled its intent to make every effort to lift the relationship with India, and, even more exciting, India is interested as well in seeing our bilateral relationship developed … I'm certainly feeling like doing the work, supporting the wider NZ effort in India is going to be a really exciting, good challenge.”

Rata (Te Aupouri, Ngāti Kurī), an Aucklander but whose most recent long-term residence in New Zealand was during the pandemic, is a career diplomat. He joined the foreign affairs ranks in 1988 when, then armed with an arts degree, the government was seeking people with “broad academic backgrounds”.

Rata had always had an interest in international relations and how New Zealand presented itself to the world. “And on that basis I applied, and I was very fortunate that my application was accepted.”

His first posting was in New York - living there during its crime-fuelled days in the 90s - working at the New Zealand Permanent Mission. At that time, New Zealand succeeded in securing a seat on the UN Security Council, which Rata was very proud to be a part of.

He went on to become ambassador to South Korea, helping New Zealand's efforts around securing an FTA with South Korea. Although he wasn’t a negotiator, his task as ambassador was to develop the relationship more widely from the Seoul end - sound familiar? - so that “could underpin the negotiations that were taking place. That was a moment I found both interesting and professional rewarding as well.”

Although his taskmaster Winston Peters is on the record as saying New Zealand’s indigenous culture couldn’t possibly mean anything on the world stage to other nations (“You’re dealing with indigenous people everywhere, so what on earth could that possibly have meant?”), on this point Rata disagrees.

“Whichever country we're in, if we're able to present ourselves and present the indigenous side of our country, I think that makes us a more interesting partner to all countries,” he says.

“I think that [India’s] population would find it interesting. I certainly feel that where we can, we should be utilising this aspect of NZ… as a part of our efforts to deepen the relationship. If we can have cultural groups, as one example, coming up and presenting a different side of NZ, I think they can greatly help what we're trying to do here.”

Rata has visited India “a few times” before, the first when he was part of the lobbying campaign for New Zealand when it was seeking a position in the World Trade Organisation. That was many years ago.

Now, although much has changed in India since then, particularly in the last decade, some things don’t: “I think the thing that just jumps out at you immediately is the volume of people, which New Zealanders just would not have experienced. It certainly jumped out at me even just arriving into the terminal … the volume of traffi … We just don't have that as a normal everyday experience, that sort of sheer volume.

“This is clearly a city on the go. And I draw from that, that this is a country on the go.”

Rata describes being in the midst of a thriving business community, with very active streets. “The people seem to have sort of a confidence. I think perhaps it has to do with the fact that India is looking to its role in the international community, and it's seeking that role with a level of confidence.”

McClay and Peters’ visits - although Rata wasn’t posted to India at that time - were well received, according to commentary handed back to Rata, which he says was encouraging.

“They leave me with the impression that India has the same interest to lift the bilateral relationship that we do. So that sets me well in the role that I've now just started to take up, it gives me reason to be excited, encouraged in the work that lies ahead.”

McClay said he had “complete confidence” in Rata and the commission. “They have the Government’s full support. They are exceptional in what they do…they are very good at building and forming those relationships.”

On that point, Rata says, “David [Pine's] advice to me on this was, you just have to keep going at it. You just need to keep getting out there. You need to be advocating all of the time. And you need to be engaging as widely as you possibly can … you just have to get out there and do the work, and it's good advice and I'll be taking it up.”

Kelly Dennett travelled to India with support of the Asia New Zealand Foundation. In tomorrow’s Sunday Star-Times, what happens if Trade Minister Todd McClay can’t get a Free Trade Agreement over the line?