NZ needs to adjust to waning Atlantic sway

Shifting global power played a significant part in Trade Minister Tim Groser’s unsuccessful bid to head the World Trade Organisation, writes

expectations of unending supremacy, there were cautionary voices suggesting that the US, whose power could never be eternal, should use an era of uncontested primacy to fashion an equitable international system as an enduring legacy for a changed world. But the US preferred a pathway of exceptionalism, exempting itself from international efforts, for example, to ban nuclear weapons testing; and from strengthening international justice with a new international criminal court; or from enlarging the scope of internationally agreed human rights; and by dispensing with United Nations Security Council authorisation of military action where this was judged necessary to secure American interests.

The US sought to advance a trade agenda through the WTO of ‘‘new’’ issues such as intellectual property promotion and protections and the like; while governments of the BRICS and others urged WTO focus rather upon long-standing ‘‘unfinished’’ business (including greater liberalisation of agricultural commerce) as well as links between economic development and trade.

It is a mark of increasing BRICS influence that progress in the socalled Doha round of trade negotiations has stalled over these deeply held differences for more than 10 years. This has prompted the US to transfer its energies to the regional level to secure its ‘‘new’’ agenda in particular through the Trans Pacific Partnership where New Zealand is, of course, implicated, although none of the East Asian BRICS have joined the negotiation, preferring to pursue greater economic integration through an Asia-led process, where New Zealand is fortunately also involved.

American strategic commitment is to lead greater regional co-operation in Asia Pacific, even though massive insolvency, dysfunctional governance and negligent financial regulation tarnish US credentials.

The news of Groser’s unsuccessful WTO bid occurred in the same week trade statistics confirmed China is now New Zealand’s No 1 trade partner.

It signifies emphatically that New Zealand is now in different international space as the 21st century begins, from that which it occupied for much of the last century when our prosperity and security dependencies lay more or less comfortably with Atlantic powers. Our own need now to adjust reinforces the vital importance for large and small countries alike, of creating and sustaining an equitable rules based system that genuinely reflects modern realities.

Terence O’Brien is a former diplomat and senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies.