$18m cut to Cooks aid is ‘not about China'? I call BS
Analysis: Winston Peters has taken a leaf from Donald Trump's playbook, with news he's paused government-to-government development aid to our closest whānau in the Pacific. 'We want an assurance that our special relationship remains special,' he tells Newsroom.
It's a response to the Cooks Islands' clumsy handling of a strategic deal between Avarua and Beijing this year, in which PM Mark Brown chose not to advise New Zealand of his plans. Cook Islands is an independent nation in many respects, but it relies on New Zealand for its currency, passport and security. That agreement entails transparency – a clause Brown chose to disregard.
Nonetheless, with the decision to pause $18.2m in core sector support (there is other aid, for capital projects and NGOs, that appears unaffected) the New Zealand foreign minister is taking a sledgehammer to a walnut, and flouting the lip service that was once paid to keeping development aid decisions distinct from New Zealand's strategic priorities.
Peters says the decision to suspend aid was made slowly, because New Zealand officials were asking a series of questions in writing and not getting satisfactory answers. 'That is, satisfactory answers that would enable us to account to the New Zealand taxpayer, and also, more importantly, to the Cook Islands people, the diaspora, both here and across the world, in Australia and New Zealand in particular.
'So we've got responsibilities ourselves here, and we wanted to make sure that we didn't put a step wrong in our commitment and our special relationship, which goes back decades.'
Cook Islands News, which broke the story on Thursday morning (NZT), reports local concern at the move.
Te Tuhi Kelly, a Cook Islands opposition candidate, describes the suspension of aid as 'a significant escalation'. He says the islands' government will now face internal pressure to balance Chinese engagement with preserving long-standing New Zealand ties and benefits. 'Other diplomatic avenues are likely to follow until transparency and consultation are restored.'
Peters may present this as a bump on the road between the two Pacific nations, but in truth, it's about where New Zealand positions itself vis-a-vis the US and China. And it's ironic that while Christopher Luxon is over in Shanghai, glad handing CCP Government officials, Peters is quietly trying to tip the balance the other way in the Pacific.
That's tacitly confirmed when he says he's seeking to hold the Cook Islands to account for policy decisions that go beyond the use of New Zealand development aid; that he's seeking accountability on behalf of Cook Islanders around the world.
For what? For Mark Brown's decision to cosy up to Beijing, and invite that country to visit and advise and invest and help the Cooks exploit their seabed minerals resources. All highly contentious issues – but shouldn't Brown be directly accountable to his electorate for those?
Do Cook Islanders want or need the intercession of Winston Peters, who's had a long and vexed relationship with that archipelago. (Remember the Winebox Inquiry?)
So, when Peters tells us, 'This is not connected with China' … I call BS.
China extended its Belt and Road Initiative to the Pacific in 2017, and a few months later the Cook Islands and Niue signed up. That blindsided Peters (who was foreign affairs minister then, too) and it seems he's not quite forgiven them.
In the past six years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has acknowledged it targets its development cooperation to countries where New Zealand has strategic interests – and it's implicit that there will be strategic or security expectations of those nations.
But this goes further. The wholesale removal of core sector support – a meaty contribution of nearly $20m to the Cooks' $200m government revenues – is akin to America's shutdown of USAid this year. There's no nuance, no consideration of how the money is being used.
So here's the briefing that Peters may not have sought: The purpose of this support is to enhance Cook Islands' ability to be self-sufficient. It supports schools, primary health, tourism and strengthening the public sector.
It's the support at the top of the cliff, so the people of the Cooks don't end up in the air ambulances waiting at the bottom of the cliff. (Cook Islands doesn't have a tertiary hospital, so its people are flown to Middlemore Hospital in Auckland for surgery and hospital care.)
And I know, from my time living in Rarotonga and editing Cook Islands News, that New Zealand's support buys soft power. Our High Commissioner to Avarua is an influential voice behind the scenes.
For instance, when the Cooks Parliament proposed in 2019 to further criminalise homosexuality, New Zealand diplomats quietly reminded the Cooks government that the grant of New Zealand citizenship came with the expectation that Kiwi citizens' human rights would be respected.
In all transactional relationships, especially where one party is bigger and stronger, there tends to be a carrot and a stick. Usually in diplomacy, the stick has been very much a last resort. But the Trump-style diplomacy now being adopted by Peters brings out the big stick at the slightest provocation. Soft power be damned.
Peters says foreign affairs is not about ephemeral ministers and governments. 'It's about people-to-people relationships, and that's what I'm working on to make sure that this remains the same.'
That's fair.
It's just very hard to see how a wholesale shutdown of critical government-to-government development aid can do anything other than harm the long-term relationship.
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