Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin visit NZ, Australia to strengthen Pacific ties
Anthony Albanese will meet Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin in Brisbane on Friday as Australia and NZ join with the US in pushing back against China’s engagement in the Pacific.
Anthony Albanese will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in Brisbane on Friday as Australia and NZ join with the US in pushing back against China’s increasingly assertive engagement with the Pacific.
After leaving NZ on Thursday, where he has been taking part in the annual leaders’ meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, the PM and and top US officials meet during the ‘Talisman Sabre’ military drills taking place off the coast of northern Australia. The drills, which include NZ, for the first time integrate a number of Pacific nations – including Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga in a clear signal of US-Australian commitment to the region.
China’s growing presence in the region, which saw it sign a security pact with the Solomon Islands last year and a series of agreements this month, has fuelled concern in the US and Australia about Beijing’s ambitions, and prompted increased Western aid and engagement.
At a bilateral meeting on Wednesday during their annual leaders’ meeting, Mr Albanese and Mr Hipkins agreed that, as part of a 10 year road map, the two countries would play a more active role with the Pacific ‘family’ of island nations.
“Working together we are stronger than as single nations,” Mr Albanese said on Thursday, after a breakfast of pork and octopus at a Wellington restaurant with his NZ counterpart. “Working with each other in the Pacific is so important.”
Mr Albanese’s visit to Wellington coincides with that of Mr Blinken, also in NZ to strengthen defence links with Wellington, which is acknowledged as the gateway to Pacific relations. After meeting with NZ foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta on Thursday, Mr Blinken repeatedly stressed America’s commitment to the Pacific in order to maintain the rules based international order.
His visit, coming after a parade of top level officials including White House Indo-Pacific co-ordinator Kurt Campbell and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink in March, indicates that the US sees NZ as an increasingly important player in the Pacific, and is keen to see Mr Hipkins bring his country closer to the US despite its close trade ties with China.
Mr Blinken acknowledged NZ’s “complex” relationship with countries in the region, “especially as the US moves to enhance ties between our Pacific partners.”
Without naming China, Mr Blinken said Washington wanted to use Wellington’s relationships in the Pacific “to defend the Indo-Pacific so nations make their own decisions free from coercion.”
He added that the door was “very much open” for NZ to engage with AUKUS “as a trusted partner,” and on Wednesday, Mr Hipkins said he would hold conversations with the pact partners about NZ’s involvement with Pillar 2 of the deal.
In Tonga on Wednesday, Mr Blinken warned of China’s “problematic behaviour”, citing Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea and economic coercion.
“I think one of the things that we’ve seen is that as China’s engagement in the (Indo-Pacific) region has grown there has been some, from our perspective, increasingly problematic behaviour,” he said, stressing that the US was committed to both Tonga and the broader Pacific Islands.
Beijing, which has accused Mr Blinken of “slander,” won’t be pleased that he is spending two days in NZ, which under Mr Hipkins has shifted its policy further away from China.
Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told CCP mouthpiece The Global Times Mr Blinken’s visit to the region showed the US was “trying to confuse the Pacific countries and project a bad image of China, undermining the foundation of bilateral co-operation and sowing the seeds of mistrust”.
Geoffrey Miller from the Democracy Project in NZ said Wellington was walking a tightrope between its western allies and Beijing but was moving inexorably closer to Washington.
“Wellington has signed up to new US-led groupings and joint statements, expanded New Zealand’s ties with NATO and committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars more on its military,” he told The Australian..
“It’s micro-steps rather than a quantum leap but the turnaround in NZ relations with the US is remarkable, particularly when you think about the 1980s” (when the US suspended its obligations to New Zealand under the ANZUS treaty in response to Wellington’s introduction of a nuclear free policy).
“Joining AUKUS would be a huge shift for NZ’s foreign policy, but I think that is probably on life support by now anyway.”
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