Complex world of panda diplomacy
The Lochinver farm sale rebuff ruffled feathers in Beijing, but there was still a rush of Chinese investment interest in the same week
MY LEARNED friend recently suggested that when a third term Prime Minister reaches a critical minimum of unelectability, that moment should be known as ‘‘cuddling the panda’’.
The reference is to the impression created when Wellington zoo’s enthusiasm for a couple of pandas was conflated as a plot by the Prime Minister to create an expensive ‘‘David Attenborough moment’’; a diversion perhaps from the toxic flag debate.
In fact, Key’s biggest and most unexpected environmental flourish turned out to be the announcement at the United Nations this week of a massive marine sanctuary around the Kermadecs, covering some of the least-studied undersea environments on the planet.
Spearheaded in New Zealand by former diplomat Bronwen Golder and funded by the United States philanthropic institution the Pew Environment Group, the Kermadecs project took five years of hard and creative lobbying.
A couple of years ago, before Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) and Chatham Rock Phosphate (CRP) spent more than $100 million failing to get marine consents for seabed mining under new legislation, ministers were uninterested in cutting off economic opportunity that could exist in the Kermadec Trench.
A couple of years on, the atmosphere has changed enormously. Seabed mining in New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is clearly going to be very difficult, if not impossible, and its economics are hostage to the depression in the global markets for hard commodities.
There’s a feeling, too, that if nowhere is placed ‘‘off-limits’’, it will never be possible to allow anywhere to be ‘‘on-limits’’ for seabed mining and other novel EEZ economic opportunities.
The fishing industry, which showed tin-eared self-interest over the TTR and CRP applications, was upset, but the fishery receipts from the area are less than $200,000 a year.
So, when it came to wanting to make a splash both at home and abroad, Key’s UN gambit worked. If it also assists the eventual development of a marine spatial planning approach to the EEZ, it may also lead to the identification of areas where some resource construction might be allowed to occur.
However, no-one in the minerals sector is counting on that and ministers are lukewarm. ‘‘I doubt we have sufficient knowledge to do the EEZ,’’ says Environment Minister Nick Smith, who is keen to see spatial planning for coastal waters.
However, even if mining interests are losing their appetite for New Zealand, there is no lack of Chinese capital willing to invest heavily in New Zealand infrastructure projects.
This is where we are really starting to cuddle the panda. While the Lochinver farm sale rebuff ruffled feathers in Beijing, it’s worth noting there was a veritable rush of Chinese investment interest in New Zealand in the same week as the Lochinver decision.
The agreement in principle between Guoxin, China’s largest procurement firm, and the Christchurch City Council to seek $3 billion of projects to assist the rebuild is no more than a promise to try hard.
NOTHING might ever happen, but that doesn’t make it insignificant. It’s in the same vein as the propertydeveloping Fuh Wah Group, which signed a similarly amorphous agreement with Wellington City Council last week that could yet help fund the bold plan to extend the capital’s airport runway to allow long haul flights to Asia and the US.
To date, most of the $300 million-odd price tag assumes funding mainly by New Zealand taxpayers and Wellington ratepayers, rather than the 66 per cent owner, NZX-listed Infratil.
If some lazy Chinese capital could be found to back this commercially-marginal initiative, then it might almost make sense.
To a big Chinese fund, dropping $300m on a longer runway may be chickenfeed and who knows, perhaps a Chinese airline would be willing to lose money flying long haul to Wellington. China Southern is already doing so to both Auckland and Christchurch.
Meanwhile, back in the land of panda diplomacy, Labour leader Andrew Little finally wrote a decent headline by labelling Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee a ‘‘panda pimp’’ for handdelivering a letter requesting two of the pie-bald quadrupeds during an official visit to China.
While that kerfuffle generated plenty of headlines at home, far less attention was paid to Brownlee’s carefully, but strongly worded speech at China’s National Defense University in Beijing on Monday.
In that, Brownlee gave the defence and security rationale that bears on the significance of Key’s ocean sanctuary gesture – New Zealand’s dependence on peaceful, properly-regulated oceans, which carry 99 percent of our exports to market.
Brownlee maintained New Zealand’s neutral position on China’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, but effectively suggested Beijing should grow up.
‘‘All big countries are made bigger, in every sense of the word, by recognising their strengths and confidently sharing and defusing concerns of smaller countries,’’ he said. ‘‘Recognising these concerns and seeking dialogue in the settlement of issues is the mark of a big country.’’
In the coded world of military diplomacy, that counts as straighttalking and perhaps even the risk of a panda cuff.
Even if mining interests are losing their appetite for New Zealand, there is no lack of Chinese capital willing to invest heavily in New Zealand infrastructure projects.