What would Luxon or Hipkins do if China invaded Taiwan?
What would Luxon or Hipkins do if it was found that (as in Australia) Iran had been inciting terrorism or attacks against Jewish targets in NZ?
What would Luxon or Hipkins do if the war in Ukraine expanded, with indirect support from China?
What would Luxon or Hipkins do if the US withdrew from south Korea without the latter's support?
I don't expect there to be simple answers to any of this, but I do expect a foreign policy philosophy to be expounded by the two men vying to be Prime Minister.
It's hardly surprising that foreign policy isn't a big issue in the New Zealand election, and to some extent it is a relief, but on the other hand it should matter - mainly because the international environment has not been this febrile, dangerous or uncertain since the Cold War. It is easy for New Zealanders to feel far away from the rest of the world and its problems, and it is also easy to want to pontificate to the world about how it "should be", when the chances of suffering direct military attack or even terror attack ranges from remote to very low.
However, NZ is vulnerable, not least because supply lines for everything from mechanical parts to fossil fuels to pharmaceutical, as well as export revenues, are dependent on safe shipping lanes and there being an international environment of peace and relatively open trade in goods and services.
So let's separate two elements of foreign policy:
- New Zealand's direct foreign policy interests;
- Indirect foreign policy interests around the international order and conditions within other states.
NZ's interests are closely aligned to Australia, in relation to trade and security, but there are also close interests in the South Pacific, alongside smaller island states, protecting the Exclusive Economic Zone from illegal exploitation, and protecting the high seas from military incursion and destructive levels of extraction and pollution.
As a small country, NZ's preference traditionally has been for an international order, based on respecting the territorial integrity of nation states, and their sovereignty, to be maintained. That is increasingly difficult, as the alliances of liberal democracies have been challenged by an increasingly isolationist and febrile United States on the one hand, and the increasing aggressiveness of the People's Republic of China, primarily in the South China Sea (which it asserts as its own, despite a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling invalidated China’s "nine-dash line" claims in the South China Sea), but also in sabre rattling over the free open liberal democracy of Taiwan.
In the former category, the USA's unilateral and failing action against Iran has made the Middle East more dangerous, without overthrowing one of the most brutal terrorist exporting nations on the planet. It's worth noting Iran has already been found to be behind multiple terror incidents in Australia. The US's actions against Venezuela have not been for full-scale regime change, but to extract resources from the formerly socialist authoritarian state, meanwhile Ukraine continues to suffer from the bloodiest conflict in Europe since 1945. The US is at best, an unpredictable ally, and at worst an antagonist, although that may well change after the end of the Trump Administration. What it does mean is that NZ cannot continue to free ride off of the US or Australia in regional defence. NZ should be looking to expand its defence capability and its relationship with Australia.
Meanwhile, although NZ has been largely immune from Islamist terror attacks, it has not been immune from psychopathic levels of support for Hamas, the Iranian Islamist regime and growing Jew hatred aligned to Palestinian activism. NZ has relatively little interest in the conflict, beyond seeking a peaceful long term solution to the conflict, which means both opposing Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and rejecting the sadistic genocidal terror of Hamas, and the corruption and Jew hatred fostered by the Palestinian Authority (which has further delayed elections). The current government has taken a more measured stance than the likes of Australia, which rewarded Hamas's sadistic pogrom against Israel with recognition of the non-existent Palestinian state (by contrast, Taiwan is, by every factual indicator, a sovereign state, but is blanked out because of fear of...)
China. NZ is not immune from aggression from Beijing, which continues to wage cyber attacks globally (along with its friends in Russia, DPRK, Myanmar and Cambodia), and stealing IP. China happily exploits NZ's openness around trade, investment, migration and even media, with it dominating the NZ Chinese language media (the fact Qatar, Hamas's biggest ally, has the rights to a free to air TV news network in New Zealand is another issue as well).
NZ is in a difficult position, with China as its number one trading partner, but a partner that, as seen by all of its trading relationships, is very much extractive and highly mercantilist. China seeks relationships so it can promote economic dependency on its exports, while building its own capability domestically to produce goods and services. China has already stolen cuttings from kiwifruit to boost its own production. There are no easy answers here, but Australia has the same issue.
Among the political leaders, there isn't much between Hipkins and Luxon on foreign policy, except Hipkins is closer to leftwing government democracies on the Israel-Palestine dispute. In short, he's bought into rewarding the Palestinian Authority and indirectly Hamas, for their pogrom on 7th October, and bought into the propaganda that Israel has performed "genocide" against a population that is growing in Gaza - a claim that isn't born out by either evidence or legal decisions, but is an activist assertion that doesn't bear up under close scrutiny.
Quite simply his use of the word "genocide" against one side, while never noting that Hamas committing the greatest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and which preaches genocidal intent constantly (and promotes it in schools it runs), is intellectually lazy, morally bankrupt and racist. The evidence for Hamas, part of the Palestinian Authority, and much of the pro-Palestine movement having genocidal intent is clear, since Hamas wants Israel wiped off the map, as do many pro-Palestine activists. While there remains a mainstream position of wanting a two-state solution, and resisting attempts by Israeli ultranationalists to fully takeover the occupied territories, it should be balanced by defending Israel's right to exist in peace, with defensible borders and for Jewish people to not face a renewal of the Jew hatred that sought to wipe them out.
Hipkins has now slammed the admission of Israel as a development partner to the Pacific Islands Forum, which is odd given the tinge of "anti-colonialism" that flows from Labour, but it seems treating Israel as uniquely special and wrong, is de rigueur for Labour.
There aren't a lot of vote from Jews in NZ though.
The hard-left parties (Greens and TPM) are worse of course. Both would push NZ away from more defence spending, its alliance with Australia (and the US), and treat China, Russia and the US as essentially being morally equals, which is abhorrent. In particular, the cosplaying by the Greens and TPM and almost constant parroting of Hamas propaganda shows how morally bankrupt they both are on foreign affairs. TPM wants NZ to be neutral, which means being neutral between Russia and Ukraine (closer to the US position ironically), neutral if China invades Taiwan, but not neutral against Israel which it essentially campaigns for its abolition. The Greens are not quite so despicable, but I can never forget the response after 7th October by Chloe Swarbrick which was to be more concerned about Israel's response to Hamas, than what Hamas did, and for Swarbrick to pick the "good Jews" to listen to on the conflict, rather than the mainstream. For both the Greens and TPM to treat Jews as not indigenous to Israel smacks of far-left racism, that somehow regards the colonisers of the 7th century to be indigenous, but not the people they evicted.
As despicable as that is, the wider foreign policy concern is that there is just an absence of understanding that the international environment is not favourable to multilateralism anymore. The world has become much less about a largely unified block of liberal democracies dragging developing countries and tyrannies into some international rule of law, and much more about neo-realist power politics. The US has decided to abandon Europe's defence by and large, and to appease Russia - a nuclear power with an economy the size of Spain. It has also decided to leave the UN and other multilateral agencies to the power and influence of China and others filling the vacuum, and to treat personal relationships as a substitute for principle and rule of law. Whether that lasts is uncertain, but what does matter is NZ looking after itself, remaining with allies that share its values, and being able to respond to rapidly changing challenges internationally, particularly when they affect supply chains and security.
The international trade environment has seen the WTO be gutted by both the Trump Administration, and the likes of China, the EU and India, all of which are responding unilaterally. NZ has to pursue more free trade agreements, although not ones that sacrifice its own economic wellbeing as a fig leaf to retain protectionism. That is what the EU-NZ Free Trade Agreement does by enabling EU activists to sue NZ for not maintaining economically destructive policies under the auspices of fighting climate change. You can be sure the EU doesn't get similar agreements with larger powers like China, but the Ardern/Hipkins Government was very keen on virtue signalling.
So where do the political leader see NZ going in defence? Who knows?
How would they respond if China attacked Taiwan? Who knows?
What's their view on the USA as an ally? Not clear.
Do they think NZ should contribute more to the collective defence of the South Pacific? Maybe.
Do they think Israel's right to exist is worth defending loudly? Maybe.
Do they fully support Ukraine remaining within its internationally recognised boundaries? Probably
Do they think that the main meaning of the "independent foreign policy" is being antagonistic to other liberal democracies, including our allies? Who knows?
I suspect Hipkins and Luxon don't know or care very much about foreign policy, except (in Labour's case) where it grabs votes from more radical rivals.
but then given NZ is not directly exposed to the consequences of the breaking world order, not many care either.
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