Terracotta warrior lanterns are on display outside Museum of New Zealand in Wellington. Photo: Xinhua
Opinion
Robert Patman
Robert Patman
New Zealand is unlikely to lift ban on Huawei and woo the Chinese back
China has put its relationship with New Zealand on ice, after Wellington banned Huawei. While New Zealanders would not want their government to blindly follow the US’ China policy, they also would not accept a subservient relationship with China
New Zealand is currently facing the most challenging diplomatic situation since the end of the cold war.
Until 2015, New Zealand’s commitment to a liberal rules-based order and determination to pursue an independent foreign policy had helped the country develop close ties with the two superpowers of the 21st century.
In particular, New Zealand’s relationship with China has been a major success story. In 2008, New Zealand became the first developed country to enter into a free trade agreement with China. Since then, China has become New Zealand’s biggest trade partner, with two-way trade valued at more than NZ$28 billion (US$19 billion) in 2018, and Chinese investment in New Zealand growing apace.
China’s President Xi Jinping and New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key are escorted to lunch by a Maori warrior in Auckland in November 2014. During Xi’s visit, the two countries announce their “comprehensive strategic partnership”. Photo: Reuters
China and New Zealand elevated their ties to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2014, which promotes bilateral cooperation, including working constructively in the Pacific region.
Beijing hailed its relationship with Wellington as an example of mutually advantageous cooperation between states with different political systems and implied it was a model for dealing with Western states.
But the global context of this relationship has significantly changed during the last five years. The most decisive element of the change was China’s new consciousness of itself as an economic, technological and military power.
Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, China has become more authoritarian in political and social terms at home, and increasingly assertive in the area of foreign policy.
Amongst other things, China in 2016 rejected an international tribunal’s ruling on Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea, an outcome that troubled Wellington because about 70 per cent of New Zealand’s trade and investment occurs in the Asia-Pacific region. China has also increased its economic and military involvement in the Pacific, as more members of the Pacific Islands Forum sign up for Beijing’s development strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative.
The Pacific Islands are viewed in Wellington as part of New Zealand’s neighbourhood, and they traditionally absorb a sizeable portion of the country’s foreign aid budget.
At the same time, New Zealand has been affected, like many countries large and small, by the escalating rivalry between the United States and China in the Trump era. The trade war between the superpowers has contributed to a political climate in which New Zealand-China tensions have mounted over the last two years.
Among the factors complicating bilateral relations are revelations about New Zealand member of parliament Jian Yang’s links to Chinese intelligence, widely cited research by New Zealand professor Anne-Marie Brady on China’s political influence operations in New Zealand, and an official New Zealand defence strategy paper identifying China as a possible threat to the international community.
However, it was a recommendation by New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) that the country should block China’s Huawei – the world’s largest telecoms equipment firm – from a new 5G mobile network that has most clearly displeased the Xi leadership. The bureau said Huawei’s involvement entailed “a significant network security risk”. In another statement, it linked the Chinese Ministry of State Security to hackers targeting intellectual property and commercial data in New Zealand.
New Zealand’s ban on Huawei followed a succession of blows administered by other partners in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance to a company that is closely associated with Xi’s ambition to make China a world leader in cutting-edge communications technology.
In response, China has sent New Zealand’s coalition government a carefully crafted but tough diplomatic message. Beijing is in no hurry to give Wellington the upgrade on the free trade agreement it has been negotiating since 2016. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is unlikely to secure her first visit to Beijing anytime soon.
At the same time, a much heralded China-New Zealand Year of Tourism event has been postponed indefinitely. Huawei has launched an aggressive campaign to influence New Zealand public opinion, taking out full-page newspaper advertisements that read: “5G without Huawei is like rugby without New Zealand”.
In effect, Beijing is signalling that Wellington must listen to it, and that a hitherto excellent relationship is at risk, with serious implications for trade between the two states.
The Huawei controversy has generated two major responses in New Zealand.
On the one hand, there is a view that Ardern’s coalition government is largely responsible for the deterioration in New Zealand-China relations and that it is imperative to repair relations to avoid major economic damage. This view tends to assume that the Ardern government’s policy has been shaped by the Trump administration’s China policy and that the British government’s apparent change of heart about the security risks presented by Huawei could be an example to emulate.
On the other hand, there is a contention that the Huawei episode, above all, reflects a fundamental tension between Wellington’s pluralist, democratic world view and a Beijing that has become more assertive and China-centric than it was a decade ago. According to this view, New Zealand must be clear about its own interests and values and not compromise them in a vain attempt to win favour with China.
On balance, the second view is more likely to prevail. Most New Zealanders would not accept a subservient relationship with China. And all the signs are that the current government sees no need to pursue such a relationship, given the opportunities presented by the 2018 Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, a landmark deal between 11 regional economies.
Robert G. Patman is a professor of international relations at the University of Otago, New Zealand
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: New Zealand is caught in superpowers’ tug of war
