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Contemporary Southeast Asia Vol. 34, No. 3 (2012), pp. 338–64 DOI: 10.1355/cs34-3b© 2012 ISEAS ISSN 0129-797X print / ISSN 1793-284X electronic

Choosing Ahead of Time?Australia, New Zealand and theUS-China Contest in Asia

ROBERT AYSON

Australia’s prole as one of Washington’s leading allies in the AsiaPacic has grown due to the Obama Administration’s rebalancingstrategy. While New Zealand is both unable and unwilling to matchthe intensity of its neighbour’s relationship with the world’s leading

power, its own strategic ties with Washington have strengthenedconsiderably in recent times. While Australia’s alliance with the UnitedStates may raise future challenges vis-à-vis its increasingly importantrelationship with a rising China, New Zealand also has a balancingact to maintain, not least because of its close economic ties with thePeople’s Republic. In different ways both Australia and New Zealandmay currently be reducing their room for maneouver if and when thecontest between the United States and China becomes more severe.The risks may be higher for Australia because the same strategicgeography that gives it renewed prominence may also increase itsexposure to competition and conict in Asia, and because its ownmilitary rebalancing towards the north and west of the continent isoccurring just as its defence budget has been signicantly cut. For New

Zealand, while those direct risks may be smaller, staying on Canberra’sradar screen will become harder. Indeed as they each look towardstheir own relationships with the major powers, Australia and NewZealand may need to work even harder to sustain their own bilateralalliance relationship.

Keywords: Australia, New Zealand, China, United States, alliances, rebalancing.

R OBERT A YSON is Professor and Director of the Centre for StrategicStudies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.


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Australia, New Zealand and US-China Contest in Asia 339

Like most other medium and small powers in the Asia-Pacificregion, including the countries of Southeast Asia, Australia and New

Zealand face one foreign policy challenge above all others: how to best position themselves in terms of the growing contest betweenChina and the United States. There are differences of course inthe outlooks of the two Australasian countries. Australia’s strategicgeography (including its proximity to maritime Southeast Asia andthe Indian Ocean), its larger size, 1 and the greater maritime reachand power of the Australian Defence Force, will continue to markout Canberra as a more important strategic player in Asia. NewZealand’s smaller place in the regional military equation and the

relatively stronger role that commercial considerations and SouthPacic affairs play in the determination of its foreign policy, suggestthat Wellington has a smaller part to play in the region’s futurestrategic order.

But those contrasts can also be drawn too sharply. The warmingof New Zealand’s security relationship with Washington and theintensication of Australia’s already strong alliance with the UnitedStates, suggest an important parallel. Indeed both countries arestrengthening their respective strategic connections with the UnitedStates at the same time as they are enjoying strong commercial tieswith China. Yet this similarity does not necessarily connote a commonwisdom. It is less important for policy-makers in Canberra andWellington to know whether they are taking convergent approachesto the managements of their respective relations with the two largestpowers in the Asia-Pacic region. It is more important for them toask whether they are getting that management right, and especiallywhether any choices they are signalling today will come back tomake life more difcult tomorrow.

This article provides a contribution to this necessary analysis

by rst considering Australia’s enthusiastic response to the UnitedStates which is focusing increasingly on its strategic interests inthe Asia-Pacic region. It then explains the growth in the securityrelationship between the United States and New Zealand, includingthe acceleration in Asia-Pacic defence cooperation between thetwo countries as reflected in their recently signed WashingtonDeclaration. While conrming that this trend cannot bring the NewZealand relationship to the level that Australia has been maintainingwith Washington for many years, the article shows that the latterrelationship will not be without its challenges: Australia’s commitmentto defence expenditure will be ebbing just as America’s expectationsare likely to increase


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All of this will be occurring as Australia and New Zealandseek to build their own relationships with a rising China, the

second main area of consideration. Having explored some of thenoticeable steps in New Zealand’s relationship with China, whichfrom Wellington’s current perspective is rmly based on economicfactors, the article notes the relative absence in New Zealand of thesort of debate which has been occurring in Australia about alignmentand choices vis-à-vis the two great powers in the region. Havingconsidered how Australia and New Zealand might still be able topursue their interests as Sino-US competition intensies, the articlecloses by considering what this strong focus on managing relations

with China and the US on the part of Wellington and Canberracould mean for their own bilateral alliance.

Australia’s American Choice

The Obama administration’s Defense Strategic Guidance , publishedin early 2012, maintains that:

… while the US military will continue to contribute to securityglobally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacicregion . Our relationships with Asian allies and key partners arecritical to the future stability and growth of the region. We willemphasize our existing alliances, which provide a vital foundationfor Asia-Pacic security. We will also expand our networks ofcooperation with emerging partners throughout the Asia-Pacicto ensure collective capability and capacity for securing commoninterests. 2

Australia and New Zealand are both participating in that strategy,which initially was known as the “pivot” and which is now morecommonly referred to as “rebalancing” towards Asia, but are doing

so with differing levels of intensity. But Australia’s involvement isdeeper and more obvious. The high prole announcement duringPresident Obama’s visit to Australia in November 2011 that USMarines would be rotationally deployed to Darwin 3 is the obvioustip of a more interesting strategic iceberg. More signicant is theprospect of increased access by US naval vessels and aircraft to

bases in Australia’s north and west, the latter a sign of the growingimportance of the Indian Ocean in both American and Australianstrategic thinking.

This access may one day extend to the deployment of US aircraft(possibly surveillance drones) to the Cocos Islands, an Australianterritory which is much closer to the Indonesian archipelago than


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the Western Australian coastline. This would t in with America’sdesire to maintain a clear edge in the Indian Ocean, part of the

maritime highway between the Middle East and North Asia. Thisalso corresponds with notions of a wider area of strategic interestwhich have been evident in Australian thinking. For example,Australia’s Chief of Defence Force, General David Hurley, told anaudience in May 2012 that: “The Pacic and Indian Oceans areemerging as a single strategic system that is straddled by the SouthEast Asian archipelago. This is our neighbourhood.” 4 This is alsoa neighbourhood of priority for the pivot, not least as the costsare rising for US forces wishing to maintain open access closer to

the Asian mainland because of the rising capabilities of China’sarmed forces. America’s military posture as a consequence is notjust rebalancing towards Asia as Washington refashions the spreadof its global commitments and resources. America’s posture is alsorebalancing within Asia, increasing the importance to Washingtonof a number of regional partnerships which happen to be closer toAustralia’s neighbourhood.

This is of course more than happenstance. America’s regionalmilitary posture depends on much more than the weighing of risks,threats and opportunities in Washington. It depends as well on thecalculations, responses and intentions of allies and partners, currentand prospective. In Australia’s case, the alliance relationship with theUnited States has been very close for decades. Valuable cooperationin training, procurement and intelligence, as well as America’s use ofjoint facilities in Australia, has all been part of that package. SuccessiveAustralian governments have committed themselves strongly to thealliance. John Howard, the most recent centre-right Liberal PartyPrime Minister, was in Washington D.C. during the terrorist attacksof 11 September 2011. Almost immediately Australia invoked the

Australia-New Zealand-United States (ANZUS) Treaty for the rsttime since its establishment in 1952 (a symbolic but nonethelesssignificant act) and swiftly directed Australia’s participation inthe US-led military intervention in Afghanistan. Howard’s Cabinetthen committed Australia to a much more controversial conict bysending forces to participate alongside the United States and UnitedKingdom in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the wake of the 2002Bali bombings — which killed eighty-eight Australians — Howardappeared to endorse what had become known as the Bush Doctrine

by indicating that he would use force pre-emptively against a terroristgroup threatening Australia from Southeast Asia if there was noother option available. 5 The identication of Australia as America’s


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“deputy sheriff”, a problematic phrase which had rst appeared ina 1999 interview with John Howard, gained signicant traction as

a representation of the close relationship between Washington andCanberra. 6Prime Minister Howard had also, without too much fanfare,

developed Australia’s relationship with China, whose economicsignicance was becoming increasingly noticeable as a driver ofAustralia’s modern prosperity to the point where Canberra waslauding a “strategic economic partnership” between the two countries. 7 Howard’s successor, Kevin Rudd, promised a special relationshipwith China, but ultimately gained a reputation for producing the

opposite. As well as presiding over a 2009 Defence White Paperwhich was commonly seen to depict China as a regional securityproblem and the United States as an essential ally, 8 it became knownthrough Wikileaks that Rudd had privately told the Americans thatthey might need to pull their gloves off to deal with a rising China. 9

Julia Gillard, who ousted Rudd as Labor Party leader and PrimeMinister, has continued to endorse America’s claims to regionalstrategic leadership. More signicant than the emotion she displayedin a speech to the US Congress in March 2011 10 is the unreservedsupport her government has given to Australia’s hosting of US forcesas part of the rebalancing strategy.

There is a signicant bipartisan consensus around this point.During President Obama’s visit to Australia in 2011, Gillard’s mainpolitical opponent, Tony Abbott endorsed the stationing of US Marinesin Darwin and added that the Liberal-National Party coalition heleads would “be happy to see the establishment of another jointfacility so that these arrangements could become more permanent”.In the same speech he praised John Howard for demonstrating that“it’s possible to deepen Australia’s military alliance with America

and simultaneously to build our trade and cultural links with othercountries such as China”. 11 The following year, in a speech to aleading conservative think-tank in Washington D.C., Abbott indicatedthat “The United States shouldn’t take Australia’s support entirely forgranted” because “Australia’s national interest might not always beidentical with America’s”. 12 But Abbott and his political colleagues(and predecessors) have relied on the notion that they are strongeron national security than Gillard’s Australian Labor Party. If elected,it seems unlikely that a government under Abbott’s leadershipwould reverse the natural instincts of Liberal-National coalition gov-ernments to emphasize the American alliance, or to reduce Australia’sparticipation in Washington’s strategic rebalancing.


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Australia has been playing the American card at a time whencountries in East and Southeast Asia have become more aware of

the ways that China is translating its economic prowess (whichAustralia and most other regional countries are benetting from)into greater political and strategic weight (which many in theregion are less comforted by). That translation became stark in 2010when China was pushing its increasing weight (especially over itsterritorial claims in the South China Sea) at a time when Americanand western economic fortunes seemed precarious due to the GlobalFinancial Crisis. Analysts remain divided on the extent to which thisassertiveness reected over-condence in China as the distribution

of power shifted in its favour, or whether long-standing fears aboutvulnerability were fuelling a more forceful stand in response to realor imagined provocations. 13 The multiplicity of voices in China’sforeign policy debate also has consequences for the way the pivotis perceived in Beijing. Among China’s strategic pessimists will bethose who fear that the pivot is part of a long-term US strategyto encircle China, despite continuing denials from the Obamaadministration and US analysts that America is not pursuing apolicy of containment. 14

Whether they are correct or not in their assumptions, China’spessimists can list Australia as one of America’s allies most likelyto be part of that alleged conspiracy. There is little doubt aboutwhich side Australia would take in a serious strategic crisis betweenthe United States and China, or over whether Australia would bewilling to take any side at all. Some might argue this is simplythe continuation of an existing trend. Yet wisely or injudiciously,Canberra appears to have removed the wiggle room it may once have

been seeking. Australia has made an even stronger commitment toits US relationship and to Washington’s emerging military strategy

in Asia which will be difcult to reverse. It has done this in themidst of an important debate about how quickly China is reducingits military gap with the United States in Asia, and in turn howquickly America’s dominance is being eroded. 15 Australia has made acertain commitment well ahead of the time when we can be certainof the outcome of the US-China contest for regional inuence.

The Warming of US-New Zealand Relations

New Zealand’s relationship with the United States has come muchfurther in relative terms than Australia’s over the last ve years.Yet in absolute terms it still cannot come close to matching the


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closeness and importance of the US-Australian relationship, and noris it ever likely do so. Nevertheless the relative change is still larger

because New Zealand-US security ties were frozen by Washington inthe mid-1980s following a dispute over nuclear ship visits. Many ofthese links were still restricted when Wellington decided to commitforces to Afghanistan in late 2001, and to participate more widelyin the post-9/11 counter-terrorism agenda. This did not extend tothe invasion of Iraq. The New Zealand government of that period,led by the Labour Party’s Helen Clark, decided against joining itstraditional partners in this military adventure which had not beenseparately authorized by the United Nations Security Council. 16 But

this was a rare moment of difference.By the second term of George W. Bush’s administration, gentle but steady steps were taken to develop a closer US-New Zealandstrategic relationship characterized by pragmatism and self-interest.The Clark government saw the advantages of a closer relationshipwith the world’s leading military power and it came to recognizethat its Afghanistan commitment, which would continue for overa decade, gave New Zealand a prole in Washington that helpedmake a warmer relationship possible. At home Labour also had theprogressive foreign credentials, including as the Party which hadchampioned New Zealand’s nuclear free policy in the 1980s, toprogress that reconciliation quietly and uncontroversially. 17 For itspart, Washington had become aware of the disadvantages of freezingout a traditional partner which was deploying highly valued SpecialForces as well as a Provincial Reconstruction Team to the difcultmission in Afghanistan, and which had also been heavily involved inrecent stabilization missions in Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islandsled by Australia, America’s leading ally in the South Pacic. In anera when some of Washington’s formal allies, including Thailand

and the Philippines, were less useful than emerging partners (atheme which has continued today in Asia), it was absurd to allowNew Zealand’s nuclear free stance to be the obstacle it once wasto a closer security relationship.

Subsequent political changes in both countries, with the electionof Barack Obama in the United States and John Key’s centre-rightcoalition government in New Zealand, intensied the warming trend.One reason for this was external: Washington’s policy-makers wereactively seeking closer security partnerships in the Asia Pacicas they woke up to China’s growing regional inuence, includingin New Zealand’s neighbourhood in the South Pacic. In pointof fact, if the US-New Zealand relationship is anything to go by,


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Washington’s rebalancing towards Asia was occurring well beforeit was formally articulated. It is clear from some surprisingly

direct comments by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after ameeting in Washington with her New Zealand counterpart MurrayMcCully that by 2009 the United States had completely restoredintelligence sharing with New Zealand. 18 A year later, duringClinton’s visit to New Zealand, the two countries signed theWellington Declaration. This document reected both countries’interests in working together in the South Pacic on a range of

broader security and foreign policy issues. 19 Broad but brief in itslanguage, the Wellington Declaration was certainly not an attempt

to restore a full ANZUS-style alliance relationship. However, it wasa way of demonstrating that US-New Zealand ties were now on anew footing.

A further rung on the ladder has been added more recently.During an otherwise low prole visit to the United States in June2012, New Zealand’s Defence Minister, Jonathan Coleman, and hisUS counterpart Leon Panetta signed the Washington Declaration. Incontrast to the Wellington Declaration, this new bilateral statementfocuses on deepening military cooperation between the two countries,mainly in terms of maritime security in the wider Asia-Pacic region.Again, New Zealand’s leaders have been careful to argue that thisnon-binding declaration is not a return to ANZUS. And strictly andlegally speaking, they are certainly correct, as well as politicallysavvy, to do so. Yet there are still some interesting comparisonswhich can be made between the two declarations. One clause inthe new Declaration, for example, commits the two countries “torespond in accordance with national approval processes in a timelyand effective way to the range of contingencies that may arise inthe region, including humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and

multilateral cooperation with regional partners’ armed forces”.20

The latter parts of this clause certainly include the wider and lesscontroversial sphere of cooperation against non-traditional securitythreats. But some might still note a similarity between one part ofthis clause and the operative clause of the ANZUS Treaty (ArticleIV) signed over sixty years earlier: “Each Party recognizes that anarmed attack in the Pacic Area on any of the Parties would bedangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it wouldact to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutionalprocesses.” 21 To be sure, the Washington Declaration does not requireeither party to come to the other’s assistance in the event of anattack: that sort of alliance commitment is absent. Yet the United


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States and New Zealand have nonetheless signed up to a publicstatement that they will build their “maritime security presence

and capabilities”, including “maritime domain awareness”, andthat they will “Cooperate in the development of [their] deployablecapabilities, in support of peace and security in the Asia-Pacic”. 22 Quite what expectations Washington has in mind with regards tothis latter phrase remains open to question. It is enough to say thatit may be in New Zealand’s interests to ensure that the bilateralunderstanding of “peace and security” in the wider region is nottoo extensive.

By the time this rather striking document had been signed,

the pace of military cooperation between the United States andNew Zealand had already been stepped up. After the WellingtonDeclaration was issued, New Zealand sent the multi-role vesselHMNZS Canterbury to participate in the annual US humanitarianexercise Pacic Partnership, which alternates between the SouthPacic and Southeast Asia. In the rst half of 2012 US Marinesand army personnel trained in New Zealand for the rst time indecades. New Zealand has since participated directly in the US-ledmultilateral Pacic Rim (RIMPAC) exercise which is unabashedlyfocused on maritime warghting capacities. While this was NewZealand’s rst substantial participation in RIMPAC in a generation,the New Zealand media characteristically decided to focus on theminor point: that New Zealand’s vessels were required to berth inWaikiki rather than at Pearl Harbor. 23 This was one sign that therewere still some limitations on the bilateral defence relationship(specically involving the visits of ships in ports on both sides), butit was a minor factor compared to the big story of the revitalizationof New Zealand’s security ties with Washington.

That story has had its most recent chapter in Leon Panetta’s

visit to New Zealand in September 2012. This was the rst suchvisit by a US Secretary of Defense in thirty years: the last beingCaspar Weinberger in 1982 when the two countries were still formalANZUS allies. The major announcement during Panetta’s discussionswith Coleman, McCully and Key was that the Obama administrationhad now lifted the restrictions on New Zealand warships visitingUS military bases, removing the irritant noted above. This was notcoupled with any change in Wellington’s position: the nuclear freeposition remains intact.

At one time New Zealand’s nuclear stance posed a problem in bilateral relations, but has become signicantly less so in recent years.Both countries have agreed for some time that their well established


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disagreement over nuclear ships is a “rock in the road” which can be worked around. 24 It is a rock because the 1987 nuclear free

legislation is understood by both countries to be a well-establishedfeature of New Zealand’s political landscape. In signalling that itdid not wish fundamentally to change New Zealand’s foreign policysettings if elected to ofce in 2008, John Key’s National Party wascommitting itself even more rmly to this non-nuclear position. 25

It is almost unthinkable that New Zealand could consider areturn to ANZUS, even if that were desired, without overturningan important part of the country’s political furniture. And it is theprotection of this difference that seems uppermost in the argument

by leading members of the Key government that this strongerrelationship, including the Washington Declaration, has not reducedNew Zealand’s ability to retain an “independent” foreign policy. 26 Yet the developments of the last two years suggest that the Keygovernment has taken especially seriously the argument made inNew Zealand’s 2010 Defence White Paper that “Our security also

benets from New Zealand being an engaged, active, and stalwartpartner of the US.” 27

Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that New Zealand is nowan informal ally of the United States. A formal alliance relationship(including a return to full ANZUS relations) still seems most unlikely,and it is not clear that public opinion in New Zealand regards itas a priority. But as Singapore’s experience has demonstrated (as avalued security partner of the United States which will soon hostUS littoral combat ships) it is not necessary to be a formal allyof Washington to be closely connected strategically. In a televisioninterview during his time in Auckland, Panetta indicated that hehad discussed with Coleman closer cooperation in the developmentof amphibious capabilities, an area of strong focus for the future

shape of the New Zealand’s armed forces.28

He also indicated in atelevision interview that if Wellington was interested, the UnitedStates would be happy to consider the stationing of Marines inNew Zealand as part of this cooperation. 29

There is no sign, however, that this is a priority for the Keygovernment. It is not clear either that it would attract strong bipartisansupport. While the main opposition Labour Party has generally gonealong with the acceleration in US-New Zealand security links thathave occurred since it left ofce, even a small US military presenceakin to the stationing of Marines in Darwin might be going toofar for public opinion in New Zealand. Yet it can also be arguedthat in symbolic terms at least, New Zealand has already had its


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“Darwin moment” courtesy of the Washington Declaration and theexpectations this could well have generated.

Absolute or Relative Progress?

Greater participation in training and exercises with the UnitedStates, improved access to intelligence and regularized high levelconsultations are all part of this richer New Zealand-US relationship.Yet neither separately nor in combination can these stronger linksever approach the intensity of Australia’s bilateral alliance with theUnited States. This gap is not down to the fact that Australia took

a different approach during the anti-nuclear protests of the 1980swhich occurred in both countries when US vessels visited. Nor isit because Australia has consequently enjoyed an unbroken formalalliance relationship with Washington since the creation of ANZUS.It is more about the asymmetry in size and geographic utility ofthe two Australasian countries which have contrasting levels ofsignicance for America’s strategic objectives in the region.

New Zealand is isolated from Southeast Asia and is naturallyprotected from instability and conict in that part of the world bythe Australian continent. At under 10,000 personnel, New Zealand’sarmed forces are modest in size, have limited power projectioncapabilities and are more suited to the lower intensity environmentof the South Pacic than the mid- and higher intensity environmentof the wider Asia Pacic. That New Zealand chose over a decadeago to disband the strike component of its air force but updateits helicopters, and opt for a multi-purpose vessel and patrol craftin place of a third frigate, says something about the contingencieswhich its armed forces face in a neighbourhood where domesticstrife, natural disasters, domestic instability and illegal shing are

prevalent and interstate military maritime competition is rare andunlikely. But it does mean that New Zealand’s combat utility in amedium or high intensity conict in the wider Asia Pacic, includingas part of a US-led coalition, is signicantly limited.

The Australian continent, by contrast, is a connection point between the Indian and Pacic Oceans, making it a leading assetfor any American options to check China’s growing regional power.Australia’s northern reaches are also little more than a stone’s throwfrom the Indonesian archipelago. Canberra’s relationship with Jakarta,while not without its challenges, is considerably stronger than duringthe East Timor crisis in 1999. In September 2012, during a visitby Defence Minister Stephen Smith to Jakarta, the two countries


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signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement to implement the 2008Lombok Treaty, 30 which codied Australia’s respect for Indonesia’s

territorial integrity. There is also some possibility of modest trilateralcooperation between the United States, Australia and Indonesia.The prospects are increasing for much closer Australian-Indonesianstrategic relations, something clearly in Australia’s interests becauseits own security depends to a signicant degree on what occursin Indonesia. There is no sign of any comparable developmentin New Zealand’s low-key and commercially focused relationshipwith Indonesia, and little reason for trilateral cooperation betweenAustralia, Indonesia and the United States — which would

presumably have a strong Indian Ocean focus — to include NewZealand.The Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) now long-standing focus

on the defence of Australia’s northern maritime approaches (thefamous “air sea gap”) 31 still bring it into contact with a widerAsia-Pacic environment in a way not entailed by New Zealand’sstrategic geography. Canberra has not stopped there: the ambitiousforce structure plans revealed in the 2009 White Paper appearedto have had some of the further reaches of the Asia-Pacic regionin mind. To the extent that they were ever going to be affordable,the Air Warfare Destroyers (currently being built) and a newgeneration of both combat aircraft and submarines (which are also

being sought) have the potential to further enhance Australia asone of America’s most valued military operational partners in theAsia Pacic. Little can change the reality that Australia’s capacityto deploy maritime military power and to work together with USforces (including interoperability in the realm of C4ISR: Command,Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance andReconnaissance) has become increasingly distant from anything New

Zealand might hope to achieve.This comparison will continue to hold even in an unfolding erawhere the long period of real growth in Australia’s defence expendi-ture has come to an end. The bloated defence capability plan whichthe Australian system had been unable to digest for many yearswould have been certain to hit the skids even if the brakes hadnot been put on by the Gillard government. But those brakes havecertainly been applied, and in a sharp jolt rather than a smoothdeceleration. The May 2012 budget announcement foreshadowedcuts of over A$5billion over the next five years which would,according to some estimates, take Australia’s defence spending downto closer to 1.5 per cent of GDP from the near 2 per cent gures


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that had become a post-Cold War custom. 32 On top of this are evenmore substantial deferrals in expenditure, including for the Joint

Strike ghter project, which contributes to a historically signicantexpenditure reversal. 33 It is still unclear how much this realitycheck will be reected in the force structure ambitions containedin the Gillard government’s 2013 Defence White Paper and in itsinevitable successor if current Liberal leader Tony Abbott winsofce in the federal elections which may take place by the end ofNovember 2013. What is certain, however, is that Australia will beunable to afford or obtain the range and depth of advanced maritimecapabilities that it has for many years been seeking.

Australia’s Gap between Ends and Means

This signicant change in defence spending is happening at thesame time as Australia has increased its commitment to a closerstrategic relationship with the United States. That commitment is

based partly on the assumption that Australia might do more in aregion whose strategic prole has been raised and which now hasa stronger Indian Ocean dimension, and perhaps also by Australia’sinterest in developments in the strategic environment to the north ofits Southeast Asian neighbours. It will be happening at the same timethat Australian forces are supposed to be repositioned towards thecountry’s north and west following a force posture review produced

by two former Secretaries of Defence, Allan Hawke and Ric Smith.Their report recommended the upgrading of numerous Australian

bases and facilities in both northern and western Australia, as wellas selected facilities in Brisbane, Sydney and the Cocos Islands. 34 Inmaking these recommendations the authors had in mind not onlythe future operating requirements of the ADF, but also the capacity

of a number of these facilities to host the expected expansion invisits by US forces. Such infrastructural enhancements are expensive,as is the relocation of units of the ADF from one part of a vastcontinent to another. The report indicates clearly that the writersof Australia’s next white paper will need to pay attention to the“new initiatives arising from this Review that would require veryconsiderable investment”. 35

Successfully achieving just a portion of these changes will bechallenging as Australia’s defence cuts begin to bite. It is more thanlikely that as time goes on Australian commentators will argue thattheir country is falling behind the trends in the wider region. TheHawke and Smith report also contains judgements which express


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this concern. Most signicant here is their conclusion that “themargin of US strategic primacy in the Asia-Pacific is reducing

as China rises, even more quickly than anticipated in the 2009Defence White Paper”. 36 But also of particular relevance to Australiaare the judgements that “securing sea lines of communication andenergy supplies will be a strategic driver for both competition andcooperation in the Indian Ocean region to 2030” and that nearby“Southeast Asia is becoming more important to the wider Asia-Pacic strategic balance and great power competition than at anytime since the 1970s.” 37 None of these judgements would seem tocall for a more modest Australian defence effort.

Moreover, Australia’s defence downsizing will also be happen-ing as the United States goes through its own painful, and evenlarger, reconciliation between military ends and means. It is hardto imagine that over the medium term these reductions will leaveAmerica’s forces in the Asia Pacic completely unaffected, rebalanc-ing notwithstanding. As a result, Washington will be relying moreon its regional partners at a time when many of them are keento rely more on US strategic power in Asia as China’s inuencegrows. Something will have to give in this equation. One of theworst outcomes, short of major power disorder and conict itself,would be a situation where both the United States and its allies andpartners feel let seriously down by each other. Even if this outcomeis avoided, from Beijing’s view it would be easy to conclude thatwhichever way relationships evolve, the correlation of forces willcontinue to move in China’s favour.

Yet whatever happens here, it is difcult to avoid the conclusionthat Australia’s importance to the United States cannot but grow.Moreover, there is almost no conceivable situation or circumstancewhich could allow the strategic importance of New Zealand to

equal that of Australia in America’s worldview. This inevitableasymmetry is reected in the rule that while New Zealand regardsits relationship with Australia as pre-eminent by some distance,Australia thinks the same not of its trans-Tasman neighbour, but ofthe United States. Strategic weight will continue to trump closeness.This difference is telling. Wellington’s 2010 white paper makesan observation that almost no New Zealander would be surprisedat reading: “Australia will remain New Zealand’s most importantsecurity partner.” 38 In Australian defence thinking, New Zealandcertainly has a particular subregional utility. The recent ForcePosture review indicated that “New Zealand is an important ally forAustralia, particularly for operations in the South Pacic and East


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Timor”, 39 a focus which is also evident in the 2009 white paper. 40 But the South Pacic represents a considerably smaller percentage

of Australia’s strategic coverage than it does for New Zealand. Asthe importance of Australia’s links with the larger Asian powersgrows, it is conceivable that in Canberra’s mind there will be aseries of defence relationships considerably more important in theAsia-Pacic region than the one it has with New Zealand. Japan andIndonesia, with whom it already has a security declaration andsecurity treaty respectively, spring quickly to mind here.

The United States also has formal allies (i.e. Australia, Japan,the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea) and partners (including

Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam) in the Asia Pacific whichare of greater material and/or geographical importance. But thisdoes not render New Zealand strategically irrelevant. Despite itslimited combat power, and a less than vital strategic geography,the positions and policies New Zealand adopts in regional affairsstill matter. These do not necessarily have a great deal to do withhow New Zealand uses the limited military forces at its disposal.Indeed, aside from Timor-Leste, there have fortunately been fewrequirements for New Zealand to deploy forces operationally inthe wider Asia Pacic in recent years. New Zealand’s participationin peacetime military arrangements, including the Five PowerDefence Arrangements, now into their fifth decade, and theASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) arrangement,do count. The rst is a sign of New Zealand’s continuing defenceengagement with traditional partners in the region, and the secondis evidence of New Zealand’s participation in new efforts towardsmultilateral military cooperation in Asia, where it can hitch its agon issues which have consequences for major power relations inthe region. In short, in an era when the United States is looking

for closer security partnerships and China is fearful of encirclement,quite where New Zealand places itself is its most important pieceof foreign policy decision-making. This includes how New Zealanddiplomatically positions itself in the South Pacic, a region whichhas taken on increasing signicance as the contest between themajor powers has increasingly been extending beyond the EastAsian core. The annual meetings of the Pacic Islands Forum,the main multilateral organization in this subregion in which NewZealand and Australia have traditionally taken the major roles,have become another venue where that major power contest has

become evident. The 2012 meeting in Rarotonga, for example, whereNew Zealand and China announced a new cooperative aid project


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for the Cook Islands, also attracted the high prole attendance ofHillary Clinton, which the Key government also welcomed. 41 Indeed

McCully and the Australian Parliamentary Secretary Foreign Affairsand Trade, Richard Marles, held a trilateral meeting with Clintonat the Forum. 42

China and the Commercial Imperative

In welcoming greater US attention to its own nearer neighbourhood,New Zealand has had to simultaneously manage its burgeoningrelationship with a stronger China. This also means paying attention

to the wider implications of New Zealand’s economic relationshipswith the major powers as the Asia-Pacic trade and investmentarchitecture evolves, for even this ostensibly commercial set ofrelationships can send important signals about strategic competitionin the region. The New Zealand government has noticed thisdimension in its close involvement in negotiations for the Trans-Pacic Partnership (TPP), a region-wide free trade agreement which

builds on the “P4” arrangement among New Zealand, Singapore,Chile and Brunei. With a successful free trade agreement already inplace with China, but without a corresponding agreement with theUnited States, Wellington has welcomed the Obama administration’sdecision to join the TPP negotiations. But with some Chinesecommentators wondering if the TPP is now a US-led instrumentdesigned to curtail China’s economic inuence, the New Zealandgovernment has been left with a delicate balancing act. Trade MinisterTim Groser, who was himself once a trade negotiator with the NewZealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, recounted a meetingin Washington in 2011 in which he was fending off questionswhich had:

… this anti-China avour to them. I got this really stupid questionalong those lines from someone I didn’t know in the audience andI answered, ‘If TPP develops into some crude anti-China or China-containment exercise, let me put it in everyday language, we’reout of here.’ And Craig Emerson sitting next to me, for Australia,grabbed the microphone out of my hands and said, ‘And we’ll bethrough the door with the Kiwis,’ to illustrate that Australia andNew Zealand are not going to be sucked into this game. 43

By dint of its less intense strategic relationship with Washington,and its smaller size, New Zealand probably has had a greater chancethan Australia of staying away from this sort of zero-sum game.


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These factors may explain for what are commonly referred to as the“four rsts” in New Zealand’s relationship with China. As recorded

in the Key government’s China Strategy, New Zealand was the rstWestern country to conclude a bilateral agreement with China onits accession to the World Trade Organisation (August 1997); therst developed economy to recognize China’s status as a marketeconomy (May 2004); the first developed country to enter intoFree Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with China (announcedNovember 2004); and the rst OECD country to sign a high-quality,comprehensive and balanced FTA with China (April 2008). 44

This strategy sticks very much to a strong commercial orient-

ation in New Zealand’s approach to its China relationship. Its rstobjective is to “retain and build a strong and resilient politicalrelationship with China”. Yet the main act appears in the second:“Double the two-way goods trade with China to [NZ] $20 billion by2015”. 45 Beyond this short-term horizon, however, New Zealanderswill come to experience, in a way that Australians already dorather more, some of the other effects of a stronger and more activeChina. A recent public opinion survey conducted for the Asia-NewZealand Foundation concluded that “More than two-thirds of NewZealanders (68 per cent) agreed that China’s growth has beengood for New Zealand’s economy” and that a similar percentagefelt it unlikely that China would become a military threat to NewZealand in the next twenty years. 46 But strong opinions among smallsections of the population can still make a difference. The recentcontroversy over the sale of New Zealand dairy farms to Chinesecompanies, 47 which was completely out of proportion to the amountof investment involved, is one sign of the challenges that may beon the horizon.

The Debate about Choices

On the whole, however, New Zealand has not had a China debatein the way Australia has had in the context of the emerging majorpower contest involving the United States. The debate in Australiais due in large part to the way in which one very prominent analysthas painted the options in starkly compelling terms and waitedfor the inevitable responses. In 2010, Hugh White’s essay in 2010that sparked a passionate debate over what China’s power meansfor Australia’s long-standing attachment to ANZUS. 48 In 2012 hefollowed this up with a book focusing on America’s choices indealing with the same rising China. His conclusion is that the only


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There is no doubt that Australia and New Zealand both havestrong interests in the maintenance of American strategic power

in Asia. Beyond that, however, the logic of the argument becomesmore challenging. Neither country has a developed position onhow it expects the United States and China to reconcile theirambitions. Australia has tended to keep its strong strategicrelationship with the United States and its extremely importanteconomic relationship with China in separate policy pots. They

both receive a good deal of publicity but not enough attentionhas been given to how they interact. The Gillard government’sdecision in 2011 to commission a white paper on Australia in the

Asian Century ,51

under the direction of former Treasury SecretaryKen Henry, offered some hope that this might occur. But it isnot clear that a serious reconciliation between the government’sdefence policy on the one hand, and its commercial, cultural anddiplomatic linkages with China, India and other rising Asian powershas occurred. As Peter Jennings observed in August 2012, “One ofthe most curious features of the Asian Century White Paper processhas been the total segregation of both Defence as an organizationand defence as a topic of study from the review.” 52 New Zealand’s

tendency towards a monocular approach to China (as if thatcountry was a large marketplace and little else) and the warmingof its strategic relations with the United States have also tendedto occur as separate processes. This practice might be sustainableif Asia’s economic integration and the changing regional securitypicture were two domains that rarely met up. However, as China’seconomic strength translates into greater political and strategicimpact, and a growing US-China contest develops, it may becomea little more challenging for John Key to argue that New Zealand is

comfortable with the idea of a region featuring two superpowers.53

That formulation remains appealing, but it will not happenautomatically.

The fewer feuds there are between America and China, themore that Australia and New Zealand can optimize their respectiverelationships with both of the major powers, and the less that eithercountry has to worry about any reduction in wiggle room that theircloser ties with Washington may be creating. But this does notnecessarily mean that Canberra and Wellington would be absolutelydelighted to see the United States and China share power in Asia,if this meant that Beijing and Washington had eyes largely for eachother and ignored the smaller and medium powers in the region. By


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comparison, in an environment where the United States and Chinaare contesting each other, the importance of the smaller players in

the region can rise if the major powers are courting them.An environment of heightened US-China contest is of course

hardly in the interests of any regional powers. Violent competition between the two giants would harm national interests throughout theregion, and Australia and New Zealand would be far from immunefrom the effects, although for the most part the immediate damageto them would largely come in an economic form. But this doesnot mean that Australia and New Zealand’s interests are optimized

by harmonious relations between the two big players. A certain

amount of US-China competition increases the value of smallerand medium powers without dragging them into a dangerous spiralwhere a zero-sum choice then needs to be made. For New Zealandand Australia some gains can be made from major power competi-tion of a limited sort.

The good news is that New Zealand and Australia can stillpursue their interests in an environment where US-China com-petition increases to at least some degree. And to a certain extentat least, they only need to say no to either great power when they

are asked to make an unlikely us-or-them choice. It is thereforepossible in many cases to say yes to both. This is why, to somedegree at least, New Zealand has been able to build its US andChina relationships simultaneously, and equally why Australia’svery close relationship with the United States has not prevented itfrom doing very well from China, despite some obvious tensions.

The bad news, however, is that the US-China competitioncould go too far for anyone’s comfort. Should US-China strategiccompetition become too dangerous, it may no longer be in Australia

or New Zealand’s interests to be as visible in the Asia Pacic asthey currently are against the backdrop of Washington’s rebalancing.It may be better for their preferences to be hidden. This puts apremium on careful policy-making. Their close linkage with theUnited States may not quite look like the containment of Chinain today’s circumstances where great power relations are relativelycalm. But might these connections become an unambiguous part ofan anti-China coalition when the lines are drawn more sharply? Canwe properly anticipate what our interests might look like in thatfuture era to determine the choices we make about our intereststoday? For many of the countries of Southeast Asia a similar logicmay also apply. They should also regard their room to maneuver


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as a commodity too precious to discard for short-term tacticaladvantage. The real question is not what we want from the major

powers in the next ve years, it is what we think we might beable to have in twenty years’ time, and what that means for ourpositioning today. 54

The Effects on the Australia-New Zealand Relationship

As Australia and New Zealand pursue their respective relationshipswith the major powers, it would be odd if the bilateral strategicrelationship which exists between them remains unaffected. At least

two sets of effects for Australia-New Zealand strategic relationscan be expected here. First, it is possible that the more that NewZealand and Australia emphasize links with the United States andChina in their own foreign policies, the less relative importance theymay attach to their relationship with one another. There is a strongasymmetry here already because while Australia is New Zealand’sleading defence and trading partner, in Australia’s case the UnitedStates and China ll those two positions respectively. Moreover itwas the breakdown in New Zealand’s security relationship withthe United States which accelerated defence cooperation betweenAustralia and New Zealand in the second half of the 1980s, a

bilateral military relationship which had not been as consistentlystrong beforehand as some readers may have expected.

This means that the old ANZUS triangle now had two stronglegs: US-Australia and Australia-New Zealand, and one weak andvirtually non-existent one: between the United States and New Zealand.While New Zealand was no longer subject to a formal US securityguarantee, it might be argued that its security continued to benetfrom the increasingly strong US-Australian strategic relationship.But the more New Zealand enjoys a revitalized strategic relationshipwith Washington, the less room and energy the two trans-Tasmanneighbours may have for their own security relationship. Historically,Australia and New Zealand tended to conduct their relations withmajor power allies (both Britain and the United States) in parallelrather than in tandem: their bonds of cooperation with each majorpower ally were much stronger than the bonds of cooperationthey enjoyed with one another. And even if this style of geometrydoes not return, New Zealand may find it difficult to stay on

Australia’s radar as Canberra focuses on the changing strategic balance in Asia.


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The second set of effects exacerbates the rst. The expectationthat Australia will side with Washington in future disputes, if

coupled with an expectation in Canberra that New Zealand will orshould take a similar line, may complicate Wellington’s preferredpolicy betwixt and between the major powers. A recent reporthas suggested that Australia and New Zealand are more likely toencounter a series of small tests rather than a large one as theynavigate major power relations in Asia. 55 But New Zealand willstill want to have wiggle room in this navigation process, even ifover the next few years it is much more likely to side with theUnited States (and Australia) should a more serious crisis emerge.

Australia’s especially strong commitment to its alliance relationshipwith Washington may complicate Wellington’s search for breathingroom in its future regional affairs.

This is not to suggest that the rationale for extremely closeAustralia-New Zealand strategic relations will disappear. A newcrisis in the South Pacic, where Canberra and Wellington arenormally the rst and leading responders, would renew that logicvery promptly. Their modern strategic relationship was probablyat its closest a decade ago as their commitments to Timor-Leste

combined with their responses to the instability in the SolomonIslands. But even in this closer neighbourhood the effects of themajor powers on local relationships is being felt. As the risingAsian powers develop closer economic and aid relationships in theSouth Pacic, New Zealand and Australia will remain importantpartners for most Pacific Island governments. But the relativestrength of these local bonds may also diminish. If everyonein the neighbourhood is increasingly focused on building tieswith larger external powers, it should not be surprising if New

Zealand’s and Australia’s traditional leadership role is challengedindirectly.The same might well be said for the bonds between Southeast

Asian countries in some circumstances. There is some historicalevidence, including from the early years of ASEAN, that a commonconcern about great power competition can encourage strongercooperation within a regional neighbourhood. But looking ahead,it would not be surprising if the simultaneous embrace of bothgreat powers by most of the Southeast Asian countries, and byNew Zealand and Australia as well, will strain some of the bondsthat have grown up among these small and medium powers as themajor powers jostle for inuence.


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Conclusion

It is nearly as tempting to exaggerate the differences in the strategicoutlooks of Australia and New Zealand as is to emphasize thesimilarities. In seeking to position themselves wisely as the competi-tion between the United States and China develops, Canberra andWellington certainly do face some of the same questions. Moreover,many of these questions are familiar to policy-makers in SoutheastAsia. How close should we get to the United States as we welcomeWashington’s greater emphasis on Asia-Pacic strategic affairs? Howdo we do this in a way which reassures us as China grows morepowerful without antagonizing the same China which is so essentialto our future? Are we falling into a trap with our policies whichincreases the strategic contest between the United States and Chinawhich we are so keen to avoid?

But to the extent that observers in Australia and New Zealandare asking these questions, they still do so with some differingperspectives and backgrounds in play. Even if New Zealand hadnot experienced a rupture in its defence relationship with theUnited States in the mid-1980s, it would still today be less close toWashington than Australia is as America’s leading Australasian ally.And even if New Zealand had not signed a Free Trade Agreementwith China, commercial considerations would still have featuredmore strongly in its foreign policy towards Asia than they doin Australia which has always attached greater relative weigh tostrategic questions. Yet neither Australia nor New Zealand need to

be prisoners of their different histories as they relate to both theUnited States and China. If they get today’s small choices wrong,however, they may come to be prisoners of a much more testingperiod of great power relations in Asia.

NOTES1 Australia’s population (approximately 22 million people) is ve times larger

and its economy about nine times larger than New Zealand’s. By land areaAustralia is about 25 times as large as New Zealand, although its ExclusiveEconomic Zone is less than three times as large as New Zealand’s.

2 United States Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, January2012), p. 2 [emphasis original].

3 See “Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Gillard of Australiain Joint Press Conference”, Parliament House, Canberra, 16 November 2011,


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.

4

D.J. Hurley, “The Australian Defence Force: Set for Success”, Speech to LowyInstitute for International Policy, 30 May 2012, p. 2, < http://lowyinstitute.cachey.net/les/documents/events/120530_cdf_speech_lowy_institute_transcript.pdf>.

5 For a thoughtful analysis, see Robert Garran, True Believer: John Howard, GeorgeBush and the American Alliance (Crows Nest NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2004),p. 135.

6 For example, see Philip Bowring, “Australia: Deputy Sheriff Down Under”, NewYork Times , 18 July 2003, . For an academic treatment of parts of the widerdebate in Australia, see William Tow, “Deputy Sheriff or Independent Ally?Evolving Australian-American Ties in an Ambiguous World”, The PacificReview 17, no. 2 (2004): 271–90.

7 See Roy Campbell McDowall, Howard’s Long March: The Strategic Depiction ofChina in Howard Government Policy , 1999–2006 , Canberra Papers on Strategyand Defence no. 172 (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2009).

8 For this White Paper, see Australian Government, Defending Australia in theAsia-Pacic Century: Force 2030 (Canberra: Department of Defence, 2009). Fora prominent example of that perception, see John Mearsheimer, “The GatheringStorm: China’s Challenge to U.S. Power in Asia”, The Chinese Journal ofInternational Politics 3, no. 4 (2010): 381–82.

9 See, for example, “Australia PM Kevin Rudd ‘Sought Tough China Policy’”,BBC News , 6 December 2010, < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacic-11925438>.

10 See “Ovations and Flattery in Julia Gillard’s Speech to US Congress”, TheAustralian , 10 March 2011, < http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811>.

11 Tony Abbott, “Address to Parliament in Honour of the Visit by Barack Obama,President of the United States of America, House of Representatives, ParliamentHouse”, 17 November 2011, < http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspx>.

12 Tony Abbott, “Address to the Heritage Foundation, Washington D.C.”, 18 July2012, < http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8816/Address-to-the-Heritage-Foundation-Washington-DC.aspx>.

13 For an analysis of the different perspectives in both Western and Chinese opinionon this matter, see Michael D. Swaine, “Perceptions of an Assertive China”,China’s Leadership Monitor, no. 32 (Spring 2010), < http://carnegieendowment.org/les/CLM32MS1.pdf>.

14 For example, see Leon Panetta, Speech to PLA Academy of Armored Forces,Beijing, 19 September 2012, < http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1723>.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/16/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-gillard-australia-joint-presshttp://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/16/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-gillard-australia-joint-presshttp://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/documents/events/120530_cdf_speech_lowy_institute_transcript.pdfhttp://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/documents/events/120530_cdf_speech_lowy_institute_transcript.pdfhttp://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/documents/events/120530_cdf_speech_lowy_institute_transcript.pdfhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/opinion/18iht-edbowring_ed3__1.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/opinion/18iht-edbowring_ed3__1.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/opinion/18iht-edbowring_ed3__1.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11925438http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11925438http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8816/Address-to-the-Heritage-Foundation-Washington-DC.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8816/Address-to-the-Heritage-Foundation-Washington-DC.aspxhttp://carnegieendowment.org/files/CLM32MS1.pdfhttp://carnegieendowment.org/files/CLM32MS1.pdfhttp://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1723http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1723http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1723http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1723http://carnegieendowment.org/files/CLM32MS1.pdfhttp://carnegieendowment.org/files/CLM32MS1.pdfhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8816/Address-to-the-Heritage-Foundation-Washington-DC.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/News/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8816/Address-to-the-Heritage-Foundation-Washington-DC.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.tonyabbott.com.au/LatestNews/Speeches/tabid/88/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/8454/Address-to-Parliament-in-honour-of-the-visit-by-Barack-Obama-President-of-the-United-States-of-America-House-of-Representatives-Parliament-House.aspxhttp://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ovations-and-flattery-in-julia-gillards-speech-to-us-congress/story-fn59niix-1226018797811http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11925438http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11925438http://www.ny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15 For the most recent installment of that debate, see Hugh White, The ChinaChoice: Why America Should Share Power (Collingwood VIC: Black Inc.,2012).

16 In parliament Prime Minister Clark stated that her “Government will not beassisting a war for which there was no case at this time.” See MinisterialStatements — Iraq — Military Action, 20 March 2003, Hansard (New ZealandParliamentary Debates) 67, p. 4290, < http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htm>.

17 For a not altogether successful attempt to generate controversy on thesedevelopments some years after the fact, see Nicky Hager, Other Peoples’ Wars (Nelson: Craig Potton, 2012).

18 See “US-NZ Relationship Warms”, Dominion Post , 9 October 2009, < http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/2949778/US-NZ-relationship-warms>.

19 For the text of the declaration, see “Wellington Declaration on a new strategicpartnership between New Zealand and the United States of America”,4 November 2010, < http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Features/665-Wellington-declaration-on-new-NZ-US-partnership.php>.

20 “Washington Declaration on Defense Cooperation Between the Department ofDefense of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of NewZealand and the New Zealand Defence Force”, 19 June 2012, p. 3, < http://www.

beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/les/WashingtonDeclaration.pdf>.21 Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States of

America (ANZUS), < http://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/new_zealand/anzus.pdf>.22 “Washington Declaration”, op. cit., pp. 2–3.23 For a spectacular example of this overreaction, see John Armstrong, “Petty Ban

a Black Mark for America”, New Zealand Herald , 3 July 2012, < http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10817154&ref=rss>.

24 For a recent reference to the use of this turn of phrase, see Bruce Vaughn,The United States and New Zealand: Perspectives on a Pacic Partnership (Wellington: Fulbright New Zealand, 2012), p. 21, < http://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/axford2012_vaughn.pdf>.

25 Key’s predecessor as National Party leader, former Reserve Bank governor DonBrash, had created a political backlash when it was reported in 2005 that hewanted to repeal the nuclear policy.

26 See Audrey Young, “Back to Being Friends with Benefits”, New ZealandHerald , 23 June 2012, < http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10814951>. O n the tortured history of that conception in thehistory of New Zealand’s foreign policy, see Malcolm McKinnon, Independenceand Foreign Policy (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993).

27 New Zealand Government, Defence White Paper 2010 , (Wellington: Ministry ofDefence, 2010, p. 19).

28 On plans for a “joint amphibious task force” as the core of the future NZDF,

see New Zealand Government, Defence Capability Plan (Wellington: Ministry ofDefence and New Zealand Defence Force, 2011), p. 12, < http://www.defence.govt nz/pdfs/reports publications/defence capability plan 2011 pdf>

http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htmhttp://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htmhttp://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htmhttp://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/2949778/US-NZ-relationship-warmshttp://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/2949778/US-NZ-relationship-warmshttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Features/665-Wellington-declaration-on-new-NZ-US-partnership.phphttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Features/665-Wellington-declaration-on-new-NZ-US-partnership.phphttp://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/WashingtonDeclaration.pdfhttp://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/WashingtonDeclaration.pdfhttp://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/new_zealand/anzus.pdfhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10817154&ref=rsshttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10817154&ref=rsshttp://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/axford2012_vaughn.pdfhttp://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/axford2012_vaughn.pdfhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10814951http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10814951http://www.defence.govt.nz/pdfs/reports-publications/defence-capability-plan-2011.pdfhttp://www.defence.govt.nz/pdfs/reports-publications/defence-capability-plan-2011.pdfhttp://www.defence.govt.nz/pdfs/reports-publications/defence-capability-plan-2011.pdfhttp://www.defence.govt.nz/pdfs/reports-publications/defence-capability-plan-2011.pdfhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10814951http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10814951http://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/axford2012_vaughn.pdfhttp://www.fulbright.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/axford2012_vaughn.pdfhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10817154&ref=rsshttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10817154&ref=rsshttp://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/new_zealand/anzus.pdfhttp://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/WashingtonDeclaration.pdfhttp://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/WashingtonDeclaration.pdfhttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Features/665-Wellington-declaration-on-new-NZ-US-partnership.phphttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/Media-and-publications/Features/665-Wellington-declaration-on-new-NZ-US-partnership.phphttp://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/2949778/US-NZ-relationship-warmshttp://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/2949778/US-NZ-relationship-warmshttp://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htmhttp://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htmhttp://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/6/5/0/47HansD_20030320_00000959-Ministerial-Statements-Iraq-Military-Action.htm


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29 See “Q+A: Corin Dann interviews Leon Panetta”, Sunday, 23 September 2012,1:00 pm, Television New Zealand Press Release, < http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00291/qa-corin-dann-interviews-leon-panetta.htm>.

30 See Stephen Smith, Minister for Defence, “Australia and Indonesia — StrategicPartners”, Jakarta, 4 September 2012, < http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/09/04/minister-for-defence-australia-and-indonesia-strategic-partners/>.

31 The archetypal presentation of this concept is to be found in the review whichpreceded the 1987 Defence White Paper. See Paul Dibb, Review of Australia’sDefence Capabilities: Report to the Minister for Defence (Canberra: AustralianGovernment Publishing Service, 1986).

32 For example, see the Peter Hartcher, “Australia’s Credibility as an Ally at Riskafter Defence Cuts, says US”, The Age , 18 July 2012, < http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AF>.

33 See John Kerin, “Military Expenditure Takes a Pounding”, The AustralianFinancial Review , 9 May 2012, < http://afr.com/p/national/budget/military_expenditure_takes_pounding_3gqR08FSEUWGPwssTHVM6N>.

34 See Allan Hawke and Ric Smith, Australian Defence Force Posture Review ,Canberra, Australian Government, 30 March 2012, < http://www.defence.gov.au/oscdf/adf-posture-review/docs/nal/Report.pdf>.

35 Ibid., p. 55.36 Ibid., p. 6.37

Ibid., p. 7.38 New Zealand Government, Defence White Paper 2010 , op. cit., p. 28.39 Australian Defence Force Posture Review , op. cit., p. 54.40 See Defending Australia in the Asia-Pacic Century: Force 2030, op. cit., p. 97.41 See “Key: Clinton’s Visit Increases Importance of Forum”, New Zealand Herald ,

29 August 2012, < http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pacic-islands/news/article.cfm?l_id=10&objectid=10830298>.

42 See “Trilateral Joint Press Statement Australia, New Zealand, and the UnitedStates of America Rarotonga, Cook Islands, 31 August 2012”, < http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/08/197259.htm>.

43 Tim Groser, quoted in Joanne Black, “Will the Trans-Pacic Partnership upsetChina?”, New Zealand Listener , no. 3570, 24 March 2012, < http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/trans-pacic-partnership-upsetting-to-china/>.

44 Opening Doors to China: New Zealand’s 2015 Vision (Wellington: New ZealandTrade and Enterprise and New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade,2012), p. 7, < http://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/NZinc/NZInc-%20Strategy%20-%20China.pdf>.

45 Ibid., p. 16.46 Colmar Brunton, New Zealanders Perceptions of Asia and Asian People

(Wellington: Asia New Zealand Foundation, April 2012), p. 5, < http://www. asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_nal.pdf>. A corresponding poll found that fewer Australians, about 58 per

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00291/qa-corin-dann-interviews-leon-panetta.htmhttp://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00291/qa-corin-dann-interviews-leon-panetta.htmhttp://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/09/04/minister-for-defence-australia-and-indonesia-strategic-partners/http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/09/04/minister-for-defence-australia-and-indonesia-strategic-partners/http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://afr.com/p/national/budget/military_expenditure_takes_pounding_3gqR08FSEUWGPwssTHVM6Nhttp://afr.com/p/national/budget/military_expenditure_takes_pounding_3gqR08FSEUWGPwssTHVM6Nhttp://www.defence.gov.au/oscdf/adf-posture-review/docs/final/Report.pdfhttp://www.defence.gov.au/oscdf/adf-posture-review/docs/final/Report.pdfhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/pacific-islands/news/article.cfm?l_id=10&objectid=10830298http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pacific-islands/news/article.cfm?l_id=10&objectid=10830298http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/08/197259.htmhttp://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/08/197259.htmhttp://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/trans-pacific-partnership-upsetting-to-china/http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/trans-pacific-partnership-upsetting-to-china/http://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/NZinc/NZInc-%20Strategy%20-%20China.pdfhttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/NZinc/NZInc-%20Strategy%20-%20China.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.asianz.org.nz/sites/asianz.org.nz/files/Asia_NZ_perceptions_of_asia_report_2011_final.pdfhttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/NZinc/NZInc-%20Strategy%20-%20China.pdfhttp://www.mfat.govt.nz/downloads/NZinc/NZInc-%20Strategy%20-%20China.pdfhttp://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/trans-pacific-partnership-upsetting-to-china/http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/trans-pacific-partnership-upsetting-to-china/http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/08/197259.htmhttp://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/08/197259.htmhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/pacific-islands/news/article.cfm?l_id=10&objectid=10830298http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pacific-islands/news/article.cfm?l_id=10&objectid=10830298http://www.defence.gov.au/oscdf/adf-posture-review/docs/final/Report.pdfhttp://www.defence.gov.au/oscdf/adf-posture-review/docs/final/Report.pdfhttp://afr.com/p/national/budget/military_expenditure_takes_pounding_3gqR08FSEUWGPwssTHVM6Nhttp://afr.com/p/national/budget/military_expenditure_takes_pounding_3gqR08FSEUWGPwssTHVM6Nhttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-credibility-as-an-ally-at-risk-after-defence-cuts-says-us-20120717-228gz.html#ixzz26g1Xw6AFhttp://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/09/04/minister-for-defence-australia-and-indonesia-strategic-partners/http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/09/04/minister-for-defence-australia-and-indonesia-strategic-partners/http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00291/qa-corin-dann-interviews-leon-panetta.htmhttp://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00291/qa-corin-dann-interviews-leon-panetta.htm


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364 Robert Ayson

cent, thought it unlikely that China would be a military threat to theircountry over the same period. See Fergus Hanson, Australia and New Zealandin the World: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, The Lowy Institute Poll2012 (Sydney: Lowy Institute for International Policy, 2012), p. 26, < http://lowyinstitute.cachey.net/les/lowy_poll_2012_web3.pdf>.

47 For useful coverage of the background, see Jason Young, “Investing inthe Economic Integration of China and New Zealand”, China Papers 22(Wellington: New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre, 2012),pp. 19–20.

48 See Hugh White, “Power Shift: Australia’s Future Between Washington andBeijing”, Quarterly Essay 39 (September 2010): 1–74.

49 Hugh White, The China Choice, op. cit.50 See, for example, Hedley Bull, “The New Balance of Power in Asia and the

Pacic”, Foreign Affairs 49, no. 4 (July 1971): 669–81. 51 See Julia Gillard, “Speech to the AsiaLink and Asia Society Lunch”, Melbourne,

28 September 2011, .

52 Peter Jennings, Ken Henry’s Asian Century , ASPI Policy Analysis no. 104(17 August 2012), p. 5. For the report, see Australian Government, Australia inthe Asian Century, White Paper (Canberra: Department of Prime Minister andCabinet, October 2012), .

53 See John Key, “New Zealand in the World”, New Zealand International Review 35, no. 6 (2010): 5.

54 For an attempt to consider some of these factors in New Zealand’s case, seeChris Elder and Robert Ayson, “China’s Rise and New Zealand’s Interests: APolicy Primer for 2030”, Discussion Paper 11 (Wellington: Centre for StrategicStudies, 2012), < http://www.victoria.ac.nz/css/docs/Discussion_Papers/DP11-12%20China’s%20rise%20and%20NZ’s%20interests(O NLINE).pdf>.

55 Ibid.

http://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/lowy_poll_2012_web3.pdfhttp://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/lowy_poll_2012_web3.pdfhttp://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-asialink-and-asia-society-lunch-melbournehttp://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-asialink-and-asia-society-lunch-melbournehttp://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/white-paper/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdfhttp://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/white-paper/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdfhttp://www.victoria.ac.nz/css/docs/Discussion_Papers/DP11-12%20China%E2%80%99s%20rise%20and%20NZ%E2%80%99s%20interestshttp://www.victoria.ac.nz/css/docs/Discussion_Papers/DP11-12%20China%E2%80%99s%20rise%20and%20NZ%E2%80%99s%20interestshttp://www.victoria.ac.nz/css/docs/Discussion_Papers/DP11-12%20China%E2%80%99s%20rise%20and%20NZ%E2%80%99s%20interestshttp://www.victoria.ac.nz/css/docs/Discussion_Papers/DP11-12%20China%E2%80%99s%20rise%20and%20NZ%E2%80%99s%20interestshttp://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/white-paper/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdfhttp://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/white-paper/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdfhttp://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/white-paper/australia-in-the-asian-century-white-paper.pdfhttp://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-asialink-and-asia-society-lunch-melbournehttp://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-asialink-and-asia-society-lunch-melbournehttp://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/speech-asialink-and-asia-society-lunch-melbournehttp://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/lowy_poll_2012_web3.pdfhttp://lowyinstitute.cachefly.net/files/lowy_poll_2012_web3.pdf


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