We must be wary of aligning with Aukus
Any thought of a New Zealand association with Aukus would have to be prefaced by a lot more discussion with the public than has hitherto been the case, Don Brash writes.
Afew weeks ago, Helen Clark and I wrote a joint op-ed entitled “We must not abandon our independent foreign policy”. Various people have since ridiculed the notion we could have a meaningfully independent foreign policy and there has been some enthusiasm for the discussions Foreign Minister Winston Peters has had with his Australian counterpart, Nato, including some individual members in Europe, and finally with senior members of the Biden Administration in Washington.
Media reports suggest the possibility of New Zealand becoming associated with the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (Aukus) defence agreement has been mooted at a number of meetings.
But before deciding to join any military grouping, especially one so transparently aimed at our largest trading partner, a great deal more discussion with the New Zealand public is required.
There is no suggestion Aukus is anything other than a military partnership premised on the urgent need to push back against China. And any NZ involvement would presumably also be premised on the need to defend the country against purported Chinese aggression.
Anybody with knowledge of Chinese history since 1839 should not be surprised if it were to be militarily assertive two centuries later.
Long before that, China was an advanced civilisation, widely regarded as the country where paper, movable-type printing, gunpowder and the compass were invented. In the 15th century, as Columbus sailed the Atlantic, a Chinese fleet with substantially larger vessels sailed to the east coast of Africa – only to be destroyed on their return because the emperor decided the rest of the world had nothing to offer China.
But starting in 1839, at the hands of Britain, China suffered serious military defeat by a succession of European powers and was forced to concede territory and to pay reparations for the damage done to European interests in China – largely because the European powers insisted on selling opium to Chinese merchants against the law. Chinese citizens were treated little better than animals.
In 1894, Japan too attacked China and under the treaty which ended that war, gained substantial territory on the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan.
In the 20th century, the European powers which forced the Treaty of Versailles on Germany at the end of World War I decided the parts of China occupied by Germany should be handed to Japan. Of course, a few decades later, Japan invaded other parts of China, slaughtering an estimated 20 million people, many unarmed civilians.
So between 1839 and the mid-20th century, the country which had regarded itself as among the most advanced in the world was repeatedly humiliated by other powers. It would therefore not be surprising were China to want to restore its earlier status, at least with respect to those countries which humiliated it.
Yet there is little evidence that China seeks retribution. Yes, it has greatly expanded its military forces over the last decade or two but, while estimates vary, it spends only about a third of what the US spends on its military. Apart from militarising some very small “islands” in the South China Sea, it appears to have only a single overseas military base, in Djibouti.
By contrast, according to Google, the US in 2023 had some 750 overseas military bases, some small, others accommodating thousands of troops, including bases all around China’s eastern border – in South Korea, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Australia. The US insists on its right to sail naval vessels along China’s coast in a way the US would not tolerate if the boot were on the other foot.
What we have is the classic situation described admirably by Harvard professor Graham Allison in his book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap? Allison argues that when a dominant power is confronted by a rising power, like China, war is almost always the result (it was in 12 of the 16 cases Allison considered over the last 500 years).
The US has been the dominant power for years – arguably since the end of WWI, but certainly unchallenged since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now it is being challenged by a rising power in the shape of China, whose economy is already larger than the US economy (measured on the purchasing power parity exchange rate preferred by economists) and because China’s population is four times that of the US, its economy will be twice the size of the US economy if Chinese living standards reach even half those in the US.
Various writers have questioned whether NZ has the option of having the independent foreign policy we claim to have had for 40 years. Surely, we should be allied with countries with “Western values”, a belief in individual freedom, and so on? That clearly implies an alliance with the US. But the emerging power struggle between the US and China is not about “Western values”, but an oldfashioned struggle for dominance. The US has long been allied with countries a very long way from being democracies (think Saudi Arabia and Egypt) and is now actively courting Vietnam.
We would be wise to recall that over at least the last half-century, US military adventures have been disasters, both for the US and the countries directly involved. The Vietnam War cost more than 58,000 US military deaths and an estimated 3.5 million Vietnamese casualties. The Iraq war cost fewer lives, but was hardly a success in any dimension, with Iraq now having an unstable government under the influence of Iran. The military occupation of Afghanistan was costly for the US and its allies, even more costly in loss of life for the Afghans and, following US withdrawal, has left Afghanistan again ruled by the Taliban.
At this point, the prime minister describes Australia as our only ally. That should surely not imply that, just because some Australians buy into America’s desire to remain the dominant power in East Asia, we should also buy into that nonsense. (In Australia, both former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating and former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull have raised serious concerns about Aukus.)
To me, Singapore’s foreign policy is a model worthy of study. It appears to have a cordial relationship with both the US and China. In April 2022, Singapore’s prime minister formally said it is not an ally of the US, would not conduct military operations on its behalf, and would not seek direct military support from the US. Why wouldn’t that work for NZ?