The NZSIS has issued its annual threat assessment. Featuring prominently in the increased risks is foreign interference in New Zealand by the People’s Republic of China, linked to its increased geopolitical assertiveness. China has, of course, strongly refuted the allegations.
Threat assessments are blunt instruments designed to demonstrate to the public that the NZSIS is alerting our government to dangers they see in domestic and international environments. The assessments do not exist to educate, explain or discuss why our security is becoming less certain and more complex. For this we need to take a more active interest in national security and start considering some much broader issues.
The first problem, the elephant in the Pacific, is the People’s Republic of China. China is not our enemy. For New Zealand, China is a staple trading partner, producing goods we need and offering markets essential to our economic well-being. China has a presence in a range of South Pacific Island countries just as we do and outwardly seeks a prosperous and secure Pacific.
However, China is politically incompatible with our system of government, it regards itself as the protector of Chinese people everywhere (even here), and it is transactional in its international relations. China will employ the full ambit of intelligence, influence and interference operations as it perceives it needs to, and it will do so here regardless of its denials. This does not make China our enemy, after all, the US was caught spying on its NATO partners not so long ago. They are all still friends. Friends do not see eye to eye on everything; NATO countries take varied positions on the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
We need to carefully consider the nature of any covert activity here and formulate a mature pragmatic response to it, regardless of who the offenders may be. Our relationship with China will need to be nuanced, needing constant and careful attention. China may seek to influence our future political direction. We need to be cautious of this because influence and interference are opposite ends of a very grey spectrum. The unavoidable reality is China will remain a permanent acquaintance of ours well into the 21st century, whether we like it or not, and we may need to revise our threat narrative to accommodate that.
"Our relationship with China will sooner or later complicate our relationship with the United States, which still has an octopus-like reach across the globe."
The US has long assumed the Pacific is an American lake, but in recent times this assumption is open to question. Its smiling and extraverted personality, with its historic naval and military presence dating from World War II makes the US desirable as the traditional stabilising power in the region. Despite President Trump’s unpredictability, the US is a democracy and as a country we see it as a friend.
But US military power is finite, is likely to decline, and is critically unlinked to us economically. As a small island nation, totally dependent on trade, this is the key to our national security. The US will seek to influence New Zealand’s political direction just as China will, but we feel much
less threatened about that. A perception of threat may well be created not by what we see, but how we see it.
The real risk we have, is that the US and China are probably on a collision course. It is unlikely they will agree to share hegemony in the Pacific, they will in the very least go into a contest for influence in the region, and possibly even into conflict for dominance of it. The implications of these two behemoths clashing has massive implications for the South Pacific, for our ability to protect the resources in our economic zone, for our global sea and air trade routes and ultimately for our sense of security.
While an annual published threat assessment is aimed at transparency allowing the public to see what our security agencies are thinking, it may not be the best way for the public to understand the security environment. For this we are going to have to rely on ourselves to work out what it is essential for us to protect, and what circumstances would threaten us most? The result could be less pointing the finger at China, while assuming the US will always be our friend, and more seriously considering what our interests are, what would threaten them, and what can we do to ward of the worst effects of what anyone decides to do.
Dr John Battersby is a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University, and teaches and researches in intelligence and counter-terrorism. He is Managing Editor of National Security Journal.
Article originally published by The New Zealand Herald
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