The Limits and Possibilities of Sino-New Zealand Defence Relations: A New Zealand Perspective

Abstract

Western power has been sustained in the Asia-Pacific region by United States military might ever since the defeat of Japan. For the first time since then, China, a non-Western power, poses a challenge to that dominance, with the result that “neither Australia nor New Zealand has ever seriously considered how we would defend our interests and secure our countries in a region which was not dominated by our great and powerful Anglo-Saxon friends.”1 China is the new variable in the Asia-Pacific equation, and New Zealand is now required to factor this new element into its strategic calculations for the future. China’s ascendancy in the Asia-Pacific region will have a huge impact on New Zealand’s future strategic outlook. The purpose of this essay will be to design, as simply as possible, a way to structure thoughts and discussion about the defence relationship between New Zealand and China, from a New Zealand perspective. It will aim to establish a basic framework centred around a number of themes in order to provide a platform for analysis in the future. It will be a brief examination of how these two nations talk with each other at the defence level in the early twenty-first century.