New Zealand

International

eviewRMarch/April 2013 Vol 38, No 2

SOLOMON ISLANDS

Foreign policy

NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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New Zealand International Review1

New Zealand

International

ReviewMarch/April 2013 Vol 38, No 2

2 Preventing state failure Phil Goff examines New Zealand’s decision to intervene in the Solomon Islands.

Binoy Kampmark casts a critical eye over intellectual property aspects of the proposed TPP.

10 The legacies of super power Terence O’Brien looks at influences that henceforth will shape international events and considers

their impact on New Zealand.

15 Making a difference: another perspective Gerald McGhie reflects on New Zealand’s place in the world in light of recent comments by the

Labour Party’s foreign affairs spokesperson.

19 Training Papua New Guinea diplomats Peter Nichols and Peter Kennedy report on the NZIIA’s involvement in the second foreign service

training course in Port Moresby in November 2012.

20 When truth is twisted and facts are ignored Mordechai Kedar challenges the views about Palestine advanced by Lois and Martin Griffiths in

a recent article.

23 CONFERENCE REPORT China–New Zealand: an endless work in progress Brian Lynch reports on the second China–New Zealand symposium, held in Beijing last

December to commemorate the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

27 BOOKS David Hackett Fischer: Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand

and the United States (Jon Johansson).

Lindsey Hilsum: Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution (Anthony Smith).

Gregory Johnsen: The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia (Anthony

Smith).

George Morgan and Scott Poynting (eds): Global Islamophobia: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West (Michael Appleton).

David Tucker: Illuminating the Dark Arts of War: Terrorism, Sabotage and Subversion in Homeland Security and the New Conflict (Beth Greener).

32 CORRESPONDENCE

33 INSTITUTE NOTESManaging Editor: IAN McGIBBONCorresponding Editors: STEPHEN CHAN (United Kingdom), STEPHEN HOADLEY (Auckland)Book Review Editor: ANTHONY SMITHEditorial Committee: ANDREW WEIRZBICKI (Chair), ROB AYSON, BROOK BARRINGTON, PAUL BELLAMY, BOB BUNCH, GERALD McGHIE, MALCOLM McKINNON, JOSH MITCHELL, ROB RABEL, SHLINKA SMITH, JOHN SUBRITZKY, ANN TROTTER, JOCELYN WOODLEYPublisher: NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRSTypesetting/Layout: LOVETT GRAPHICSPrinting: THAMES PUBLICATIONS LTDNew Zealand International Review is the bi-monthly publication of the New Zealand Institute of Affairs. (ISBN0110-0262)Address: Room 507, Railway West Wing, Pipitea Campus, Bunny Street, Wellington 6011Postal: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, C/- Victoria University of Wellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140Telephone: (04) 463 5356Website: www.vuw.ad.nz/nziia. E-mail: ian.mcgibbon@mch.govt.nzSubscriptions: New Zealand $50.00 (incl GST/postage). Overseas $85.00 (Cheques or money orders to be made payable to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs)

The views expressed in New Zealand International Reviewnon-partisan body concerned only to increase understanding and informal discussion of international affairs, and especially New Zealand’s involvement in them. By permission of the authors the copyright of all articles appearing in New Zealand International Review is held by the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs

New Zealand International Review2

Three simultaneous crises in the Pacific that confronted New

Zealand in the first year of the fifth Labour government took up

much of my time as foreign minister. East Timor, Fiji and the Sol-

omon Islands all presented us with different problems requiring

different responses.

In East Timor, New Zealand and Australia intervened with

military forces on a large scale to prevent further slaughter and

destruction. That was followed by a United Nations led effort

through military, police and civil support to help rebuild East Ti-

mor and create a new nation. In Fiji, yet another coup overthrew

an elected government. Military intervention was never consid-

ered, but we embarked alongside Australia and the Pacific Forum

in prolonged diplomatic efforts to restore legitimate government.

In the Solomon Islands, as that country faced increasing vio-

lence, New Zealand and Australia initially resisted calls from the

government of the Solomon Islands to send personnel to restore

order. But as the country descended further into chaos, Australia

and New Zealand, with the support of the Pacific Forum, made

decisions which culminated in the creation of the Regional Assis-

tance Mission to the Solomon Islands, to respond to state failure.

How and why was the decision made to intervene? What

processes did we follow in doing so, including achieving region-

al support to assist the Solomon Islands? How effective has the

intervention been in achieving its objectives, and what were the

constraints and limitations on doing so?

First visitI first visited the Solomon Islands in March 2000. I reported to

Cabinet that it was a country where ‘fear and tension were palpa-

ble’ and that ‘the situation of violence and lawlessness could wors-

en with little warning’. In the preceding two years violence had

broken out as a result of long-standing resentment by the people

of Guadalcanal against settlers from neighbouring Malaita who

had married local women and taken control of land. This resulted

in Gwale militia groups embarking on ethnic cleansing of over

20,000 Malaitans. The Malaitans in response formed their own

militia, the Malaitan Eagle Force (MEF), which quickly seized

control of Honiara. Fighting erupted in which dozens were killed.

Law and order collapsed, with the Royal Solomon Islands Police

Force corrupt and dysfunctional at senior and middle levels.

The prime minister, Bart Ulufa’alu, sought assistance from

Australia and New Zealand, but both countries declined to in-

Preventing state failure Phil Goff examines New Zealand’s decision to intervene in the Solomon Islands.

Hon Phil Goff MP is the Labour Party’s spokesperson on foreign affairs. This article -

tervene with military or

police. We argued that

as outsiders we could not

impose solutions on do-

mestic problems and that

Solomon Islanders them-

selves needed to accept

responsibility and act to

resolve them.

In response to the

prime minister’s request,

we did however agree to

provide a neutral venue

for parties to the violence

to discuss their differenc-

es. This had proven a use-

ful form of assistance ear- Bart UIufa’alu

lier in the conflict on Bougainville, resulting in the parties moving

forward to resolve a war where 10,000 had died. With a repeat of

the Burnham Camp style peace talks, we hoped to head off full

scale conflict.

Violent confrontationsBy June, however, events took their own course with Prime Min-

ister Ulufa’alu taken hostage by the MEF and violent confronta-

tions escalating around Honiara. In response, I went to Honiara

with an RNZAF plane to evacuate New Zealanders, and to par-

ticipate as a member of the Commonwealth Ministers’ Action

Group visit.

The Commonwealth had earlier sent Sitiveni Rabuka as an en-

voy to seek resolution of the issues through dialogue, but that was

not successful. The conflict worsened and the economy and pro-

vision of government services ground to a halt. Australia worked

with both sides to broker a ceasefire agreement. The militia groups

were brought together by Australia and New Zealand in Queens-

land and persuaded to sign the Townsville Peace Agreement.

Under the agreement, Australian and New Zealand un-

armed peacekeepers — the International Peace Monitoring Team

(IPMT) — were deployed to supervise the handover of arms and

rebuild confidence in the rule of law. New Zealand contributed

fourteen of the 47 members. The IPMT would not itself impose

law and order but rather would receive and hold weapons and

monitor adherence to the peace process. An indigenous Peace

Monitoring Council was set up to keep ownership and resolution

of the problem in the hands of local people.

In my paper to Cabinet I said that taking no action would be a

recipe for sharp deterioration in the situation. I added that ‘an in-

ternational presence will increase the odds that the peace process

will hold, but cannot guarantee it’.

Labour government (along with East Timor and Fiji). As the violence escalated, New Zealand initially resisted calls for intervention, believing that outsiders imposing solutions on domes-tic problems was inappropriate. But after the situation deteriorated in mid-2003 New Zealand

-

New Zealand International Review3

In the meantime, in response to

the crises in both Fiji and the

Solomons, Australian Foreign

Minister Alexander Downer

and I sought to engage coun-

tries in the region to help find

solutions. In August 2000 we

convened the first Pacific Fo-

rum foreign ministers’ meeting

in Apia, chaired by Tuiliepa.

We achieved a significant ad-

vance in having Forum mem-

bers agree to collectively address

underlying causes of conflict in

The International Peace Monitoring Team had some success.

A substantial number of weapons were surrendered but many

remained in the hands of the militias and criminal elements. I

said in a paper to Cabinet at that time that ‘the commitment of

the militias to the peace process was uncertain and that without

effective law enforcement, the law of the gun would continue to

hold sway’.

Sadly that proved true. There needed to be political commit-

ment within the Solomons to solving the problems and this was

at best patchy. Both Australia and New Zealand increased contri-

butions to strengthening policing but this proved inadequate in

the face of intransigence from the militias.

In June 2003, a new prime minister, Allan Kemakeza, again asked

for military assistance from Australia and New Zealand after mi-

litias burned villages and killed people on the Weathercoast, and

took captive over a thousand villagers. I had personally come to

the conclusion after six visits to the Solomons that intervention of

this nature was necessary to prevent social, economic and political

collapse. I had to work hard to persuade my Cabinet colleagues

and leader of this. They had justifiable concerns about the efficacy

of intervention, the difficulties of then finding an exit strategy and

the risks to the lives of the people we would deploy.

Alexander Downer

the region and engage in situations which had region-wide im-

plications and impacts. The Apia Outcomes Statement read that:

‘Ministers recognised the need for regional action to be taken on

the basis of all members of the Forum being part of the Pacific

Islands extended family.’

We drew up recommendations which would be referred to

leaders in the Pacific Islands Forum in October in Kiribati, which

formed the basis of the Bikitawa Declaration. The Apia statement

set out fundamental principles such as freedom under the law,

equal rights for all citizens and the right of every person to partici-

pate by means of a free and democratic political process in making

decisions about their society.

It talked about upholding democratic processes and institu-

tions — the peaceful transfer of power, the rule of law, independ-

ence of the judiciary, and just and honest government. It called

for equitable economic, social and cultural development. The

statement also outlined mechanisms by which the forum would

respond to the breach of these principles, which ranged from a

declaratory statement, a fact finding mission, mediation and the

imposition of sanctions.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, following the subsequent adop-

tion of the Bikitawa Declaration, reported to Cabinet that

The Forum moved from its hitherto passive stance. For the

first time it agreed to institutionalise procedures for respond-

ing collectively to political and security crises in the region.

Some have criticised the concepts in the Bikitawa Declaration as

being Western values and principles. When the underlying cause

of the crises in the Pacific often had their origins in colonialism,

they asked how these Western concepts would be seen as relevant

in the indigenous context.

I do not disagree that the colonial legacy underlies subsequent

state failure. In the case of the Solomons the colonial power, Brit-

ain, had brought together ethnically diverse peoples into an arti-

ficial state without creating any sense of national identity. It had

also ill-prepared the new nation, with only seventeen graduates in

the Solomon Islands at independence. Britain had established a

Westminster system of government which bore no resemblance

and had little relevance to traditional custom and authority.

I do not, however, accept that the principles of the Bikitawa

Declaration are invalid. I see them as universal values relevant to

the well-being of people in any country. Yet that does not answer

the question of how those values can be inculcated into the think-

ing of the leaders and elites in countries like the Solomons.

Australia was more easily

persuaded that the time had

come to adopt a new strategy.

The world had changed since

they had last declined the invi-

tation to intervene. The events

of the terrorist attack of 9/11

and the Bali bombing in 2002

had increased concerns about

failing states providing a po-

tential haven for terrorists.

The doctrine of the re-

sponsibility to protect was

also being debated in the Allan Kemakeza

United Nations. The spectre of innocent people dying in the Sol-

omons while we sat back and watched was as unacceptable as it

had been in East Timor. The decision was made on both sides

of the Tasman that we had little option, but we needed to do it

in the right way. There needed to be a formal invitation from all

sides in the Solomons. The intervention needed to involve more

than simply the large, wealthy white countries in the south of the

Pacific in supporting the action.

Downer convened a further meeting of the Pacific Forum foreign

ministers in Sydney, and he and I set out the case for action. We

secured unanimous support for an intervention involving armed

forces. Commonwealth support and UN concurrence was at-

tained.

The intervention would be a comprehensive one in order

to maximise the prospect of its success. The armed component

would stabilise the short-term situation but there needed to be

thorough on-going reform of the police, the justice system and

financial management for long-term results. Australia was pre-

pared to commit big dollars and New Zealand to lift its level of

development support. However, a precondition of contributions

New Zealand International Review4

from both countries was not to allow that investment to be wasted

through incompetency and corruption.

On 24 July 2003 the first RAMSI personnel were deployed,

with most of the 1800 troops Australian but backed by a strong

New Zealand contingent and also regional forces from Fiji, Papua

New Guinea and Tonga. The mission received an overwhelming

welcome by the Solomon Islands people on the ground. It suc-

ceeded in collecting in 3000 firearms and 300,000 rounds of am-

munition. Militants like Harold Keke who had terrorised people

and murdered opponents were arrested.

Over 300 RAMSI police officers assisted in restoring law and

order. Comprehensive reform of the Royal Solomon Islands Police

Force (RSIPF) began. Financial management systems which had

collapsed were restored. Government services including justice,

health and education that had ceased to operate were resumed.

The mission was effective in restoring normality to the Solomons

and security to its people.

Underlying causesWhat was and is harder to change are the underlying causes of the

conflict and the endemic corruption in the Solomons’ political

system. In April 2006 conflict re-erupted with the burning down

of Chinatown in response to the election of Snyder Rini as prime

minister. The riots, not foreseen by RAMSI, were highly orches-

trated. Among those arrested were politicians who had just been

appointed as Cabinet ministers.

Order was again restored. However support for the mission

among the political leadership waned, as some politicians saw

RAMSI as blocking their ability to benefit from the perks of

power. Members of Parliament I met in the aftermath of the ri-

ots questioned whether the mission had broadened its mandate

beyond the original intentions. I reported to Cabinet that they

wanted RAMSI ‘to provide more order and economic develop-

derlying problems remain.

There has now been a sufficiently long period of calm and sta-

bility in the Solomons for the military component of RAMSI, al-

ready down to a small number, to be withdrawn, though assistance

to policing and through development aid will continue.

RAMSI has involved an enormous financial investment by

New Zealand of over $400 million dollars and more than three

times that amount by Australia. Yet the assessment by many is

that once RAMSI is withdrawn, what has been achieved will be

at risk. In cables released in the Wikileaks, US officials approving-

ly quoted the assessment of diplomatic contacts in Honiara that

if RAMSI left it would take about a week for trouble to break

out since none of the underlying issues which caused widespread

ethnic violence have been addressed. ‘Over the 28 years since in-

dependence modern government has failed to take root’, it was

reported.

Continuing fragilityThe Independent Experts Team which does annual evaluations

reported in 2010 that ‘corruption and misuse of political pow-

er continue to be a major concern’. The RSIPF remains ‘fragile

and is unlikely to be self-sustaining by 2013’. There remains a

shortage of qualified local personnel across the board. New finan-

cial management systems and the economy were doing well but

‘would easily be rolled back without explicit and ongoing political

support’. ‘While Ramsi has succeeded in suppressing the violent

manifestation of conflict, the issues underlying the tensions have

largely not been resolved and will continue to be potential triggers

for violence’, it stated.

In summary, the RAMSI achievements in pulling the Solo-

mon Islands back from the brink of economic, social and political

collapse are real and deserve credit. There are, however, critical

underlying issues that outsiders have not and perhaps cannot ad-

dress. As Canterbury University political scientist John Hender-

son has concluded on governance and constitutional issues: ‘To

be lasting and effective the political systems that emerge in the

Solomon Islands and elsewhere in Oceania will need to be home

grown. This will take time’.

The winding up of the Regional Assistance Mission is accept-

ed on both sides as being necessary. The lasting impact of the

intervention will be put to test as RAMSI withdraws.

Members of the RAMSI mission

Manasseh Sogavare ment but less law and gov-

ernance’.

Under the subsequent

prime ministership of Ma-

nasseh Sogavare tensions

between RAMSI and the

Solomon Islands govern-

ment rose, peaking with

the expulsion of Australian

High Commissioner Pat-

rick Cole in 2007. Under

subsequent prime ministers,

tensions eased, but the un-

New Zealand International Review5

‘You know, many of you who know me know that I go on and

on and on and on and then some talking about [the] TPP and

why it’s, you know, the greatest thing in the entire world.’

(Ambassador Demetrios Marantis, 8 August 2012)1

As the Obama administration’s first term came to a close, a con-

siderable strategic dimension started to become clear. The focus

on the Asia–Pacific region would start to take precedence over Eu-

ropean, Middle Eastern and Latin American issues. Washington,

it was announced, was going to ‘pivot’ towards the Asia–Pacific

region in a new realignment of interests. This would entail the

redeployment of naval forces to the Pacific, a ‘rebalancing’ that

would place 60 per cent of US naval assets in the region.2

In all of this, there has been another dimension that has lacked

serious attention. Analysis, certainly from official circles, has been

conspicuously absent. The United States, along with a group of

Illiberal trade interests:

Binoy Kampmark casts a critical eye over intellectual property aspects of the proposed TPP.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

countries, is playing the cardinal role in creating what has come

to be called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Touted as

a ‘free trade’ agreement, it is currently being negotiated by the

United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia,

New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. With the military

‘pivot’ comes that of finance, and the Obama administration has

made it clear that as 60 per cent of US export goods finds its way

to the Asia–Pacific region, along with 75 per cent of its agricultur-

al produce, it is the vital region of interest for the United States.

The shift of focus may well in time become one of the cor-

nerstones of the Obama administration’s second term, should the

TPP combine with Washington’s strategic ‘pivot’ to the Asia–Pa-

cific region. Others are less than impressed. The TPP has been

described as ‘NAFTA on steroids’.3 Billionaire and former US

presidential candidate Ross Perot suggested that if such an agree-

ment were to be implemented, a ‘giant sucking sound’ would be

heard as millions of jobs left the country.4

What exactly lies at the heart of the TPP? The United States

first entered into negotiations in March 2008. There have been up

to fourteen rounds of negotiations, all highly secretive. The degree

of secrecy, for one, is striking. Only large corporate figures, as op-

posed to public interest advocates, have been allowed to cast an

New Zealand International Review6

eye over the provisions. This has not

stopped the US State Department

from telling media representatives

that ‘stakeholders’ far and wide are

being mined for their wisdom. The

only official document we have to go

on in this regard is a leaked US draft

proposal from February 2011 detail-

ing matters touching on copyright.5

Other bits of the puzzle have only

come about because of other leaks,

totalling five, and press briefings that

offer little by the way of substantive

information.

The lack of official debate on the

subject has not prevented a very active

discussion from taking place among

observers of internet regulation, nota-

bly on the chapter covering intellec-

tual property. The Electronic Fron-

tier Foundation, to take one, has not

been impressed. Two problems are

identified by the organisation — IP

restrictions and a lack of transparency.

In terms of the first, ‘the IP chapter

would have extensive negative rami-

fications for users’ freedom of speech,

right to privacy and due process, and

[would] hinder peoples’ abilities to cess is a regional means of replacing the World Trade Organisa-

tion (WTO) agreements that failed after the Uruguay Round

(1986–94). The WTO’s efforts to complete the Doha Develop-

ment Round, launched in 2001, remain fractious and potentially

unresolvable. The document that would be produced at the end

of the negotiations would be ‘a take-it-or-leave-it document’ that

would essentially be approved by the Cabinet then given a formal

‘rubber stamp’ in Parliament. 8

Comprehensive overviewIn a talk at the Wilson Centre in Washington in August 2012,

US Ambassador Demetrios Marantis, deputy US trade represent-

ative, provided a somewhat more comprehensive overview of the

TPP’s implications. The TPP had to be comprehensive and sin-

gular in that it had to cover both goods and services, current and

future. It had to allow the United States to conduct its engage-

innovate’. The second was characterised by a grand ‘shut out’ of

‘multi-stakeholder participation’.6

New Zealand’s minister for trade, Tim Groser, articulates the of-

ficial TPP line. The government’s premise is that the TPP will

improve New Zealand’s export performance through the removal

of trade impediments. A familiar rhetorical tactic is used: quote

trade percentages and then link them to the direct outcome of

free trade.

Nearly 50 per cent of New Zealand exports are now covered

by free trade agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the

centrepiece in our current efforts to push forward the process

of trade liberalisation.7

The premise then is that the TPP improves competition (though

Groser does not say how), a wise policy as opposed to the ‘dumb’

policy of protectionism. To remain competitive in such areas as

world manufacturing ‘and be part of the global value chain, you

must ensure your manufacturers can access world-class inputs at

competitive prices’.

Having showered the protectionist philosophy with its due

share of abuse, Groser yields nothing in terms of how a TPP

might, given the range of variable economies and strengths in-

volved in the negotiations, actually contribute to ‘competition’

and the allowance of access of New Zealand companies to the

TPP market. It is merely sufficient that the regime is liberal, and

that it be open. The mechanics of how this will be implemented

is rarely touched upon.

The same oblique story can be found across the Tasman.

According to an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and

Trade stakeholder briefing on 14 November 2012, the TPP pro-

Tim Groser

New Zealand International Review7

ment in regional supply chains in the Asian region from home

soil, in distinction to the NAFTA model that saw the off-shoring

of jobs. The agreement had to remove non-tariff barriers — in

other words, the removal of those behind the scenes ‘regulations’

that become inadvertent ‘tariffs’. (Marantis gives the example of

sanitary and phytosanitary measures.)

The clincher lies in the overall framework of regulation as it

relates to non-US partners in the negotiations. The US delegation

was ‘trying to ensure that TPP partners follow good regulatory

practices like we do in the U.S.’ 9 The statement is unblemished

in its parochialism, but it states the position clearly: other negoti-

ating teams will have to mirror American practices. The level play-

ing field, in short, is uneven before it even starts, skewed towards

Washington’s vision of ‘best practice’.

It is not surprising that this sentiment is echoed in Congress,

where US senators are pressuring the administration to privilege

American interests when it comes to intellectual property rights.

Liberalisation can seem somewhat illiberal depending on how

it is employed. In a letter to the White House, 28 senators ex-

pressed the view that ‘A TPP agreement with strong protections

for intellectual property promises to be an important means of

ensuring that US companies can continue to innovate and grow

in this global economy.’ The emphasis here is on keeping jobs in

the United States, not allowing an advantage for other economies

to capitalise under the regime. This position was much lauded

by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.10

The short of it is, keep competition American.

There are smidgens of what a TPP would not do, anecdotal

suggestions coming from, to take one example, Carol Guthrie,

assistant US trade representative for public and media affairs. At

a phone briefing in July last year, Guthrie, in response to a ques-

tion covering AFL–CIO concerns on the possible undermining of

labour regulations (overtime payment and maternity leave), sug-

gested there was nothing to be concerned about. There were ‘mis-

conceptions’ floating about as to how the TPP and other trade

agreements dealt with such matters as the arbitration of inves-

tor disputes. Nothing being negotiated, assured Guthrie, would

prevent any of the participating governments ‘from regulating in

the public interest … — whether it’s in the financial sector, in

the public health sector with regard to safety or the environment

or other regulatory areas’.11 Again, her statements proved thin on

detail.

Intellectual propertyThe advocacy organisation Public Knowledge has set up a site

with details on the TPP. The organisation is most concerned by

intellectual property implications, which it sees as excessive, hav-

ing an adverse effect on ‘the ability of creators to create content,

the ability of technology companies to make innovative products,

and that ability of users to use content in new ways’.12

Negotiators of the TPP seem to be pushing the agreement in

the direction of the flawed US Digital Millennium Copyright Act

(DMCA). Provisions, commentators have noted, seem to mirror

the US statute, with the intention that other countries will adopt

them. That would mean that a range of innovative copyright re-

gimes already in place will have to be adjusted, which is exactly

what US trade representatives want. Of significance are the provi-

sions in the DMCA that govern the liability of online service pro-

viders for their users’ infringements. Significant in this regard are

the ‘notice-and-takedown’ provisions that mandate online service

providers to remove material after an owner of copyright submits

a notice alleging that the material is of an infringing nature.13

That said, the DMCA in its current form retains rules on safe

harbour — web hosting services may rely on safety from copy-

right liability provided they satisfy various provisions: lacking

knowledge of the infringement, not financially benefiting from

the infringement, and taking down allegedly infringing material

after receiving a notice from a copyright owner.14 Given all that, it

is worth noting that the DMCA is a creature of 1998. With the

accelerated transformations in online technologies — the emer-

gence of YouTube, the continued domination of Google — these

rules may well be adjusted.

Article 16.3(a) of the TPP proposal requires signatory coun-

tries to create ‘legal incentives for service providers to cooperate

with copyright owners in deterring the unauthorized storage and

transmission of copyrighted materials’. This shift of the burden to

online platforms has the effect of pecking away at such exonerat-

ing provisions as safety harbours.

Another modelAnother model here is the American SOPA or the Stop Online

Piracy Act, which also turns such internet entities as Facebook,

Google and anyone with a website ‘into a copyright cop’.15 As a

creature on its own, it was derailed in Congress, but has found

American protestors rally against the TPP

Carol Guthrie

New Zealand International Review8

shape in the provisions of the TPP. Key industries may benefit

from this — the entertainment and pharmaceutical industries,

for example. The latter is particularly keen on enforcing monop-

olies on data exclusivity with patent protection, stifling the threat

posed by generic competitors. In this sense, a free trade agreement

patterned on such premises becomes not so much free as a matter

of keeping it free for some corporate interests over others.

An analysis conducted by several advocacy groups on the

leaked US paper on patents goes into further detail. Australian

law, as it stands, provides the grounds of pre-grant and post-grant

challenges to patents. Even after the publication of a patent ap-

plication that has been accepted, a person can oppose that ap-

plication within three months under the Patent Act 1990. Such

procedures are present to prevent the abuse of the patent process,

but Article 8.7 of the leaked US TPP proposal suggests the remov-

al of this entire procedure.16 Furthermore Article 8.6 stresses the

need to avoid ‘unreasonable or unnecessary delays’ affecting the

patent process.

Advocacy groups have attacked a few specific features. The

TPP targets ‘incidental copies’, or those creations made by com-

puters in the moving of data. Temporary reproductions in such

cases do occur, and deeming this an infringement in the absence

of the copyright holder’s permission has been previously frowned

upon. This was certainly the case at the inter-governmental diplo-

matic conference that created two international copyright treaties

in 1996 — the WIP Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Perfor-

mances and Phonograms Treaty.17

Such buffer copy protection will mean a more onerous licens-

ing regime at the behest of the copyright owner. According to

Public Knowledge, there should be no criminalising of small in-

fringements — the downloading of music, to take an example.

Nor should users be ‘kicked’ off the internet for alleged infringe-

ments.18 The latter is deemed particularly worrying, introducing

what will amount to a ‘three strikes’ policy — the user could be

barred from their internet connection after three accusations of

infringement. In this case, the agreement will leave the role of

policing to the ISPs.

Potential isolationThe TPP is also a mechanism of potential isolation. The BRIC

powers are not included in the discussions, and an argument has

been made suggesting that one of the key targets of the arrange-

ment is China and its disposition to flouting international copy-

right arrangements.

This is not something that Chinese authorities will necessar-

ily want to let on. Discussion on the matter, when available, has

often been subtle and diplomatic. A publication by Professor Cai

Penghong, director of the APEC Research Centre at the Shanghai

Academy of Social Sciences, sees the various trade options in the

Asia–Pacific region as ‘complementary’ rather than a ‘zero game

relationship’. ‘Our understanding is that TPP like others such as

ASEAN +3, ASEAN +6 is a critical tool to the APEC destination

in Asia Pacific.’19

Other countries in the Asia–Pacific region have only shown

qualified support for the TPP, suggesting that such an agreement

has to take place within a broader framework of treaties. Japan’s

position is a good example of this. The Japan Business Federa-

tion (Nippon Keidanren) has, through its ‘Proposals for Japan’s

Trade Strategy’, argued for a ‘proactive and strategic trade policy’

that would involve concluding the WTO Doha Round and pro-

A protest against the TPP in Nelson in December 2012

Aucklanders protest against the partnership in February 2013

moting ‘the conclusion of EPAs with the United States, China

and the EU... through the frameworks of the TPP, ASEAN+6,

and Japan–EU EIA’.20 The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade

and Industry has been less sure, encouraging the use of free trade

agreements as a means of boosting Japanese economic recovery

while stating that it ‘might be desirable’ for Japan to join the TPP.

Purpose defeatedThere is nothing unreasonable about Washington promoting its

own interests in the global economy, ensuring that US companies

have first bite of the cherry in such areas as innovation and devel-

opment. But the use of such agreements as the TPP, ostensibly

designed to create a free trade zone that is not so much free as

selectively liberal in favour of Washington’s own laws, defeats the

purpose. The project, if anything, is designed to arrest the innova-

tive challenges posed by the emerging powers, of which China is

the primary target, and more broadly speaking companies in the

developing world. We must take the arguments from the smaller

delegations (Australia, New Zealand, Peru, to name but a few) as

not merely ill-informed factually but ideologically misplaced and

unreliable.

It is true that until the agreement is published in full, with its

provisions stated and discussed in a broader forum, some of these

assertions will have to be qualified. The public record, thin as it

is, is not encouraging. Press briefings, coupled with the various

leaks, do nothing to rebut the suggestion that the TPP remains, at

its core, an exercise in threatened US power in search of allies to

protect its interests. Free trade remains a dogma that cannot learn

new tricks, which is not surprising, given that it barely exists to

begin with.

NOTES1. Demetrios Marantis, deputy US trade representative, ‘The

Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Future of International

New Zealand International Review9

Trade’, Wilson Centre, Washington,

8 Aug 2012, Washington Newsmaker

Transcript Database, 18 Jan 2013.

2. See Congressional Research Service,

‘Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Ad-

ministration’s “Rebalancing” Toward

Asia’, 28 Mar 2012 (www.fas.org/sgp/

crs/natsec/R42448.pdf).

3. The Nation, 27 Jul 2012.

4. Noted in Matt Mitchell and Bill Davis,

‘The Take-it-or-leave-it Trans-Pacific

Partnership’, Independent Australia, 21

Nov 2012 (www.independentaustralia.

net/2012/business/the-take-it-or-leave-

it-trans-pacific-partnership/).

5. The leaked text on the intellectual

property chapter is available at keion-

Protestors in Japan in April 2012

line.org/node/1091.

6. Electronic Frontier Foundation, ‘Trans Pacific Agreement’,

nd (www.eff.org/issues/tpp).

7. Tim Groser, ‘Stoking the engine of growth’, NZ International Review, vol 37, no 6 (2012), pp.12–16.

8. Mitchell and Davis, op cit.

9. Marantis, op cit.

10. US Senate, Letter to the President, 17 May 2011, available

at www.phrma.org/sites/default/files/1245/2011.05.17_fi-

nal_hatch_cantwell.letter.pdf; ‘PhRMA Applauds Biparti-

san Senate Support for Strong Intellectual Property Protec-

tions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement’, Statement

on 19 May 2011 (www.phrma.org/media/releases/phrma-ap-

plauds-bipartisa-senate-support-strong-intellectual-proper-

ty-protections-tra).

11. Telephone Briefing by Carol Guthrie, Subject: Closing of

Round 13 of Trans-Pacific Partnership Talks, San Diego,

California, 2.14 pm, Tuesday, 10 Jul 2012, Washington

Newsmaker Transcript Database, 13 Jul 2012.

12. Public Knowledge, ‘The Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (tppinfo.

org, acc 17 Jan 2013).

13. Jodie Griffin, ‘Failing to Understand the Needs of the 21st

Century: The TPP and the Notice-and-Takedown System’,

Public Knowledge, 14 Sep 2012 (tppinfo.org/2012/09/14/

failing-to-understand-the-needs-of-the-21st-century-the-tpp-

and-the-notice-and-takedown-system/).

14. Ibid.

15. Dean Baker, ‘The Pacific Free Trade Deal that’s anything but

Free’, The Guardian, 27 Aug 2012.

A large banner at a protest rally in San Diego in July 2012

NOTE FOR CONTRIBUTORSWe welcome unsolicited articles, with or without illustrative material photographs, cartoons, etc. Text should be typed double spaced on one side of the sheet only. Text or

-come. Facsimiles are not acceptable. Copy length should not be more than 3000 words though longer pieces will be considered. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum, and only in exceptional circumstances will we print more than 15 with an article.

16. Burcu Kiliç and Peter Maybarduk, ‘Comparative Analysis of

the United States’ TPPA Intellectual Property Proposal and

Australian Law’, Public Citizen, Aug 2011 (www.citizen.org/

access).

17. Electronic Frontier Foundation, ‘Trans Pacific Agreement’.

18. Public Knowledge, ‘Trans-Pacific Partnership’.

19. Cai Penghong, ‘The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Chinese

Perspective’, Presentation, nd, noted at www.pecc.org. Pres-

entation available at www.pecc.org/resources/doc_view/1752-

the-trans-pacific-partnership-a-chinese-perspective-ppt.

20. Aurelia G. Mulgan, ‘Industry versus agriculture in Japan’s

TPP debate’, East Asia Forum, 27 Jul 2011 (www.eastasia-

forum.org/2011/07/27/industry-versus-agriculture-in-ja-

pan-s-tpp-debate/).

CORRIGENDUM

In the article ‘Taiwan update: domestic reform and soft

power diplomacy’ by Stephen Hoadley in the last issue (vol

38, no 1), it was stated that Taiwan’s Pacific aid is concen-

trated in its ‘five islands diplomatic partners — Solomon

Islands, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Palau — but

projects are also directed to Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and

Kiribati even though they are diplomatic partners of Bei-

jing’. In fact Kiribati and the Taiwan have been in diplo-

matic relations since 7 November 2003 and Kiribati is one

of the Taiwan’s six diplomatic partners in Oceania. 

New Zealand International Review10

The very idea of super power is an invention of the 20th century.

It is the product of that era of two immensely destructive world

wars and a 40-year long Cold War that imposed an ideological

straitjacket on our world, which still, some 20 years after its end,

influences mindsets of some policy-makers in powerful capitals.

According to the dictionary, the term ‘super-power’ was first em-

ployed by an American historian, W.T. Fox, in 1944 to describe

the situation created by the end of the Second World War where,

he concluded, that ‘great power plus great mobility of power de-

fined a superpower’.1

Fox identified the United States, Soviet Union and Britain as

possessing the required attributes, but, of course, events transpired

in such a way that Britain, exhausted by war and confronted by

an empire restless for independence, slipped irresistibly from pole

position — leaving the United States and the Soviet Union as

sole contenders. The Soviet Union claimed communism as the

ideology of true progress and social justice for the world, while

the United States, which had organised itself impressively for

both war and victory as well as escaping the scourge of conflict

on home soil, promoted democracy, rules-based international be-

haviour and free competition of ideas and interests as the basis for

human improvement. Each super-power assembled around it a

group of like-minded states and East/West competition was born.

New Zealand dutifully took its place amongst the West. The great

majority of states comprising the international community, new

and old, however remained uncommitted to either camp — in

the non-aligned movement.

With the benefit of hindsight it is clear now that the Sovi-

et Union, in terms of wealth and welfare when compared to the

United States, was never really a super-power. Indeed, the Cold

War witnessed sustained advance by the United States to a posi-

tion of supremacy. When the Cold War ended in 1989–90 with

the break up of the Soviet Union, there was a deep American sense

of accomplishment that amounted to triumphalism. It heralded,

according to one American mandarin, ‘the end of history’. The

United States was now the super-power. This, however, created

paradoxically the need to define afresh the United States’ national

interest in a world that it now dominated. It is proving in prac-

tice quite difficult to define US true interests other than that the

maintenance of America’s supreme standing requires, at least in

The legacies of super power

the minds of many policy-makers, that it permanently out-per-

forms all other nations in every direction. This led one European

leader to re-brand the United States as ‘the hyper power’.

Legacies are, in one sense, bequests passed on to others when

the originator departs the scene. That is not the sense intended by

this contribution, which conceives super-power legacies as influ-

ences that henceforth shape international events, including the

positioning of smaller countries like New Zealand that delve well

beneath the stratospheric dimensions of super-power existence.

There are in this sense three inter-connected parts to America’s

super-power legacy and, as suggested below, all three variously in-

fluence New Zealand’s situation.

Manifest destiny First, there is America’s traditional sense of its manifest destiny

to change the world and its values into an image of America it-

self. This constitutes a profound influence upon international

relations. According to this script, Providence has selected the

United States as ‘the indispensable nation’ to lead an unregenerate

world to a better future. Yet experience shows that leadership in

international affairs politically, economically or militarily is either

bestowed or it is asserted. This is especially true in the globalising

economy that increasingly shapes political, economic and cultural

life on this planet. Leadership that is bestowed enjoys essential

legitimacy, while leadership that is asserted in coercive ways does

not.2

The energy and imagination displayed by the United States

when creating the institutions and rules of international affairs

(for example, the United Nations, WTO, IMF) revealed Wash-

ington’s acute realisation that legitimacy as a super-power would

be enhanced by mediating leadership through international in-

stitutions that command wide support. Indeed, institutions help

of the burgeoning capacity of the United States, Soviet Union and Britain. By the end of the cen-tury the United States had been left supreme as the other super-powers fell behind. The rest of the world has been left to contend with the legacies, both positive and negative, of the United States’ rise to pre-eminence. These include the elevation of human rights in an unprecedented fashion, the militarisation of modern international relations and the vast increase in the power of persuasion.

New Zealand International Review11

create habits of co-operation amongst nations that are in the end

as important as the rules of co-operation.3 But the era of decolo-

nisation and the emergence of a whole host of new nations dur-

ing the course of the Cold War inexorably altered the balance of

membership and of interest inside the international institutions.

Thus the United States grew hesitant and disillusioned with its

own handiwork. The ‘indispensable nation’ was no longer able to

direct or supervise the institutions in ways that privileged its own

interests. A preference for working with, or alongside, smaller

coalitions of like-minded countries increasingly influences actual

US international behaviour whether on peace and security issues

with NATO, a notable legacy of super power now being extended

with a global role to rival or supplant the United Nations, or in

economics and trade, with the United States preferring to work

with a handful of governments like the Trans-Pacific Partnership,

in which Washington’s interests can be the more assertively and

successfully secured.

Foremost legacyA foremost super-power legacy of the 20th century is the way

in which the United States succeeded in elevating, for the first

time in history, the basic values, interests and aspirations of the

human individual into a universal charter for human rights. This

was memorable, although in our world of widely differing cul-

ture, tradition and religion, the secular elevation of values driven

international relations in this way is a sensitive, even provocative

business, and so it has often proven to be. Toleration of diversity,

after all, is a real value also in and of itself. The spread of human

rights and democracy by coercion, moreover, creates resistance in

places where realities or aspirations are different; and especially if

persuasion is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as moralistic cover for

pursuit of other US material or security interests.

Yet America’s capacity to maintain, and expand, super-power

influence depends on preserving its image as the focus of a shared

system of values even more than superior military or even eco-

nomic performance.4 However, in the more than twenty years

since the end of Cold War, where the United States has found

itself in a state of almost constant war fighting, the blithe asser-

tion of common values has been complicated by American resort

to torture, rendition, imprisonment without trial, pre-emptive

military strikes and other tendentious action. Likewise in the

economic realm, whilst the United States remains the largest

economy, its insolvency and its economic model of debt fund-

ed growth, its practice of printing new money, lowering taxes

and inadequate financial regulation, coupled with a paralysis of

governance gripped by partisan politics and wealthy special in-

terests, are now creating real problems in the global economy for

everyone and tarnishes US credentials for responsible leadership.

At this poignant moment New Zealand finds itself negotiating

complex economic integration with the United States through the

Trans-Pacific Partnership. There are no bankable assurances yet on

offer, but the implications for New Zealand sovereign economic

policy making are real. This negotiation breaks new ground for

New Zealand as the first ever such bargaining over economic in-

tegration with a super-power but one whose priorities are its own

recuperation from massive insolvency. The veil of secrecy that in-

evitably governs such negotiation is creating, in the absence of any

clear indication or public debate about the New Zealand bottom

line, some domestic controversy. In the past America’s adaptabil-

ity, resourcefulness and innovation have carried it through periods

of stress and difficulty, but the present tribulations will not easily

or readily be surmounted.

Militarised approachA second and related consequence of super-power legacy is the

way that 40 years of Cold War, involving intense US and Soviet

nuclear confrontation plus large sophisticated conventional forces

opposing one another, militarised the conduct of modern interna-

tional relations. When the Cold War ended there was enormous

relief everywhere, New Zealand included, that the threat of nucle-

ar doomsday had receded. But practically speaking there is little

change in the way militarisation continues to shape international

affairs. Strategic security policy-makers, especially in the United

States, forecast an uncertain post-Cold War world, warning that

it is dangerous to lower America’s guard, and vital to retain and

enhance clear military supremacy. Nuclear weapons, therefore, for

example, remain on hair-trigger alert.

At the same time real danger has emerged that nuclear weap-

ons might spread into less desirable hands. The issue of non-pro-

liferation has, therefore, become the major post-Cold War secu-

rity preoccupation, with counter-proliferation measures being

defined in the United States and the United Kingdom to include

first strike attack against would-be proliferators. Mere suspicion

of ownership is judged sufficient cause to launch war, as the 2003

assault on Iraq demonstrated and threats against Iran confirm.

Pre-emption like this grounded in suspicion of weapons posses-

sion alone is unprecedented in the annals of warfare. It is par-

alleled by determination on the part of the traditional nuclear

weapon owning countries to resist all calls themselves for effective

nuclear disarmament, thereby reinforcing their own monopoly

and perpetuating a destabilising international double standard.

But it is the way that the United States chose to respond to

the hideous 9/11 terrorist attacks on the American mainland that

guarantees the enduring militarisation of international affairs. The

assaults were criminal actions of stark horror, but the US govern-

ment elected to interpret them as acts of war where the only re-

sponse could be war itself — an open-ended global war on terror.

Washington sought to enlist international support with a cryptic

message of ‘either you are with us, or with the terrorists’. Two wars

of choice have ensued in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the very

nature of the conflict means it is impossible to define victory in

either case. The overall result is severe destabilisation throughout

neighbouring regions. It is an open question, moreover, whether

Afghan men listen to speeches, as Afghan and US soldiers stand guard in the background, in Washer district, Helmand province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2012

New Zealand International Review12

the global war on terrorism actually provides a galvanising instru-

ment for sustaining or extending US global leadership. For the

great majority of governments in the world, terrorism is not their

number one priority. The delicate question is whether America’s

virtual continuous waging of costly war is principally to secure

peace, or to secure primacy?

Diversionary effectThe global war on terror serves as well to divert serious attention

away from identifying actual causes of internationalised terrorism.

Conclusions reached in Washington, London and some other

places that 9/11 and similar outrage elsewhere represents gravely

irrational response by radical Islam to Western success, driven by

deep envy and shame at Islam’s own failures and a product of

dismal economic performance in the Arab world, are at best par-

tial and, at worst, misleading. No other region on the planet has

suffered more than the Middle East over a period of more than a

century and a half from persistent interference, manipulation or

invasion from the Euro-Atlantic world and others. While it is true

that Islam in common with Christianity is presently embroiled in

struggle between conservative and liberal forces within its faith, it

is dangerous self denial not to acknowledge that Western political,

economic and military intrusion designed to privilege external

interests constitutes a key provocation, creating turmoil that has

produced al-Qaeda and brutal indiscriminate terrorism.5 This is

not a justification for infamous barbaric behaviour but is reason-

able explanation for events without which any genuine effort to

understand and resolve basic causes is unavailing.

US policies in the Middle East to protect Israel even while it

provocatively sustains and expands illegal new Jewish settlements

on Palestine territory, to contain Iran, to supervise the sources of

Middle Eastern oil, to destabilise and unseat uncongenial region-

al regimes and to expand formidable forward military presence

are the ingredients of militarisation in the region. At the wider

international level America’s determination to reinvigorate global

leadership is reflected in sumptuous defence spending, even in

times of economic stringency, of $700 billion annually plus the

costs of stewardship of the US nuclear deterrent, which brings

the figure nearer to $1 trillion. No other country even remotely

matches such an effort. A network of more than 600 military bas-

es or installations throughout the world, together with the most

sophisticated high precision long distance weaponry and exten-

sive outsourcing of military and security responsibilities to largely

unaccountable American private contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan

and elsewhere,6 provide the foundations for pervasive militarisa-

tion of overall US foreign policy. Yet in practice indisputable US

military prowess has not proven decisive in those wars of insur-

gency and of separatism that have dominated the international

security landscape since the Cold War.

The status of sole super-power does not confer omnipotence

upon the United States, as numerous Americans themselves ac-

knowledge. The United States cannot act alone as world police-

man.7 In particular the question of just how far can a massively

insolvent US economy bear the heavy debt of its chosen role as

unrivalled global leader is one that severely exercises the present

generation of American policy-makers. In some quarters the very

extent of US insolvency becomes, however, an argument for sus-

taining a colossal military industrial complex in order to generate

productive capacity and spin off to meet the demands of an over-

stretched economy. American armament exports are by far the

largest in the world and it was, after all, so the reasoning runs,

the supreme military effort of the Second World War and its af-

termath that lifted the US economy out of the last great global

economic depression of the 1930s.

Persuasion power The third super-power legacy is what can be termed the power of

persuasion. Forty years of Cold War between the United States

and the Soviet Union was a period of bluff and counter-bluff as

the two amazons sought to unsettle or mislead one another, and/

or rally support domestically and internationally for their respec-

tive strategic policy choices. Exaggeration of threat became stock-

in-trade in Moscow and Washington to justify increases in the

numbers and lethality of enormous military arsenals. A multitude

of strategic security think tanks, especially in Washington, Lon-

don and other places, dutifully fuelled the fervour with dire pre-

dictions of uncertainty. That legacy survives the end of the Cold

War stoked by the grim experience of 9/11 and the US quest for

an impracticable goal of total security for itself that drives the

ceaseless and costly pursuit of full spectrum military supremacy,

including in space; as well as a massive programme of homeland

security involving unprecedented executive power that allows

encroachment upon individual civil rights and, even, due legal

process.

Persuasion is exerted upon America’s friends and allies to rep-

licate such measures and precautions for America’s protection.

Exaggeration of threat, of course, produces excessive fear,8 and the

striking paradox is that the most powerful military nation ever

in world history, with its dazzling leadership in such things as

innovation, technology, science, medicine and space, professes a

sense of continuous threat to its physical existence and well-being.

A messianic quality is, moreover, injected into this legend when

presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush insist that the

world is imbued with ‘evil’ states whose overthrow is America’s

duty — through regime change, pre-emptive war or clandestine

suppression.

No surpriseIn an age dominated by the technologies of communication, it is

no surprise that the practise of ‘spinning’ information influenc-

es many governments, New Zealand’s included, in the conduct The last vehicles in a convoy of the US Army’s 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division cross the border from Iraq into Kuwait on 18 December 2011

New Zealand International Review13

of their external interests. The desire to present their actions and

motives in the best possible light is perfectly understandable. On

top of this, a time-honoured feature of international relations is

that governments share intelligence with one another with a view

to persuading others to accept the interpretations, as well as the

consequential actions, of the provider. There is a veritable mass of

government intelligence in this global information age, so much

that it becomes practically indigestible at any one time. One per-

verse legacy of the super-power era is the deliberate misrepresenta-

tion even fabrication of intelligence to justify courses of action —

the 2003 attack on Iraq by a US coalition of the willing is a recent

example, but similar misrepresentation at the start of the Vietnam

War, during the Iran Contra scandal and at other times has been

used to justify armed actions.

Having said all of that, it is undeniable that among the powers

of persuasion, American soft power remains a vital part of US

potential. The attraction which American accomplishments hold

for others — inventiveness, resourcefulness and self belief — are

compelling. American ideas, taste, fashion and culture have world-

wide impact. Indeed US ability to persuade others to accept US

preferences does not, or cannot, rest simply on military strength,

although that remains very important. Soft power co-opts rather

than coerces other countries to support America’s preferred out-

comes. At its best it is something more than image, public rela-

tions or ephemeral publicity. In international relations it does de-

pend, nonetheless, upon the perceived legitimacy and credibility

of US policy. The nature of the US response to terrorism in the

post-9/11 world has at times severely tested that legitimacy and

credibility, and US soft power suffered as a consequence.9

Local impact How does the super-power legacy affect New Zealand? This coun-

try’s emergence into the world of international affairs, which oc-

curred over the 20th century, was deeply imbued by experience

of global war and Cold War. The need for physical protection led

New Zealand into alliances with the United Kingdom and with

the United States, and the contribution we made to defeat of the

common foe helped shape, along with our colonial inheritance,

a sense of modern New Zealand national identity. But it is not a

static experience. Foreign policy and domestic policy for all coun-

tries, great and small, continue to interact one with another and

globalisation now reinforces those interactions. Transformation to

the centre of economic gravity in the world is occurring as the

complexion of New Zealand itself is also changing — the new

mix of its population and the widening and deepening external

connections.

Many things do not, of course, change. New Zealand’s relative

size, remote geography and the impalpable impact we make on

the world of international affairs mean we exist and operate below

the radar screens of the powerful. That strategic invisibility, how-

ever, we have learnt, offers advantage and opportunity providing

we equip ourselves with knowledge and discernment. For over

twenty years we were estranged from the United States (as a friend

but not an ally) because of the New Zealand non-nuclear poli-

cy. Over that period under successive governments New Zealand

proved an effective operator below the radar screens by substantial

constructive internal change, broadening external relationships

and maturing foreign policy. Unsurprisingly, not all the domes-

tic change was uniformly applauded inside our society, but New

Zealand conclusively demonstrated that it had not ‘lost its way’

because of its nuclear policy, as asserted by domestic and other

opponents who dismiss the policy as disreputable and misguided.

Restored relationshipNew Zealand has now restored a relationship with the United

States through the recent Washington Declaration, and earli-

er 2010 Wellington Declaration. This is a positive development

made the more interesting because the initiatives for improve-

ment came as much from the United States as they did from New

Zealand. The abrasive years of the George W. Bush administra-

tion had prompted Washington to undertake a task of diplomatic

fence mending abroad,10 and it decided to include New Zealand.

The restoration does, however, place the question of super-pow-

er legacy back squarely before New Zealand. How far will it, in

Washington and Wellington, be a case of turning back the clock

and the relationship to previous times, ignoring in the process

the substantial transformation that has occurred in the world and

indeed in New Zealand’s own circumstances and interests?

In the background to New Zealand–US relations it is not clear

yet just how far the United States can or will adjust to the realities

of a more pluralist world. America’s 20th century international ex-

perience involved large sequences of adversarialism — the pitting

of the United States against important competitors or aggressors.

This had the effect, indeed, of bringing out the best in America.

If the United States cannot now, however, accept a vital need to

accommodate and conciliate the interests of large newly emerging

countries, and in particular China, then international relations,

and New Zealand’s positioning therein, are in for difficult times.

In East Asia, although it does not challenge the United States

globally, China clearly anticipates respect and regional primacy,

given its achievements and potential as the dynamo for East Asian

economic success. The leading Australian strategic thinker Hugh

White argues that the United States has in effect little option but

to allow China a larger role.11 China confronts a real challenge,

nonetheless, to provide on-going reassurances to regional neigh-

bours about its peaceable intentions. At the same time, the US

administration is re-asserting US leadership in the region on the

back of enhanced military superiority. Asian governments want

the United States to be engaged, but it is not clear that they are

as amenable to Washington’s leadership, let alone any notion of

containment of China. In the super-power mentality there are,

of course, no differences between engagement and leadership.

Senior US and Soviet commanders General John R Galvin (left) and General Moiseyev meet in 1990

New Zealand International Review14

China has responded negatively to what it perceives as Cold War

instincts behind US declared policy.

Much effortUnder successive governments New Zealand has invested much

diplomatic effort in East Asia, and in particular China, to build

rewarding relationships. New Zealand is particularly gratified by

the fact it remains the only Western economy to enjoy a formal

free trade agreement with China, which is proving of immense

benefit. Americans who are well connected in Washington, how-

ever, openly caricature New Zealand as naïve about China, and

one can be pretty certain that such opinions are expressed pri-

vately to the New Zealand government — perhaps more readily

following signature of the Washington Declaration. This capri-

cious judgment includes, however, a good dose of old Cold War

thinking and the super-power legacy, according to which there

exists a seamless web of Western security which no member of the

network should risk breaching.

This was exactly the same message preached at New Zealand

by powerful governments in the Cold War at the time of our nu-

clear free legislation. For New Zealand such a seamless web, if in-

deed it exists, has surely to encompass both political and econom-

ic security, but those powerful governments were, and still are,

simultaneously strenuously protecting their markets against New

Zealand competition. We need to be ready still to resist seamless

web arguments. What is more, given the compulsive preoccupa-

tion with nuclear non-proliferation on today’s international se-

curity agenda, New Zealand’s non-nuclear policy is proving to

be on the right side of history. Today, moreover, as far as China

is concerned, New Zealand is surely on the side of Hugh White

of Australia.

A sense of change to New Zealand’s external profile can be

captured by speculating about the manner in which the govern-

ment presents the New Zealand case for a non-permanent seat

on the 2015–16 UN Security Council. The campaign against

formidable competition will intensify in 2013. In the successful

bid, also against formidable opposition, the last time New Zea-

land sat on the council in 1993–94, the New Zealand case was

built around the fact that it was a friend but not an ally of any of

the five permanent members of council (United States, Russia,

France, China, United Kingdom), that it was not a member of

NATO, or the European Union, that it brought an Asia–Pacific

viewpoint to bear on the basis of an independent foreign policy

that included non-nuclear policy. There were other arguments

but, in the context of super-power legacy, these are relevant be-

cause they differentiated New Zealand from the competition. The

Cold War had just ended and there was much expectation about

what the future would hold. The majority of the UN membership

voted for New Zealand, although the majority of Western states

did not.

Different scriptFor the 2015–16 campaign the script will obviously be different

— New Zealand is a now a de facto ally of the United States, has

a close and valued defence relationship with NATO, its Asia–Pa-

cific relations are conditioned heavily by trade and the goal of

economic integration with the United States. The non-nuclear

policy, while still formally in place, figures very little in the current

New Zealand foreign policy narrative. These attributes do not ac-

tually much distinguish New Zealand from its competitors, but it

is twenty years since New Zealand last sat on the Security Coun-

cil. A new and different campaign script is inevitable. The issue is

just how far the presentation of our Security Council case will ac-

tually reflect the changing pluralist world and New Zealand’s own

situation; or alternatively reveal attachment to the conventional

loyalties of a timeworn ‘Cold War’ pecking order.

Finally, a last word on how the super-power legacy extends

into New Zealand’s South Pacific policy. Our vital national inter-

est rests with helping ensure a neighbourhood that is prosperous,

stable and well disposed to New Zealand. Given all the realities of

the South Pacific, this provides a stern test for New Zealand. Yet

we, and particularly Australia, increasingly frame our Pacific poli-

cy in terms of providing dependable stewardship of a challenging

region on behalf of the super-power, thereby lightening America’s

load. We need to recast this frame of mind so that New Zealand

sees itself as a country in and of the Pacific committed to concili-

ating and assisting its neighbours as a matter first and foremost of

our own national interest and responsibility. Other countries like

the United States and China are involved in the South Pacific, and

New Zealand needs to co-operate where appropriate with them;

but not in the sense that we are performing a task devolved upon

us from on high by the resident super-power, which then becomes

the judge of our performance.

NOTES1. Graham Evans and Jeffrey Newman (eds), Penguin Diction-

ary of International Relations (New York, 1998), p.552.

2. David P. Calleo, Follies of Power: America’s Unipolar Fantasy

(Cambridge, 2009), p.127.

3. Ralf Dahrendorf, ‘Towards the Twenty-first Century’, in Mi-

chael Howard and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), Oxford History of

20th Century (Oxford, 1998), p.341.

4. Michael Howard, The Lessons of History (Oxford, 1991), p.135.

5. Michael Howard, ‘The New “Great Power” Politics’, in Rob-

ert Harvey (ed), The World Crisis: The Way Forward After Iraq

(London, 2008), pp.183–4.

6. Rachel Maddow, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power (New York, 2012), pp.157–87.

7. Nancy Soderberg, The Superpower Myth, The Use and Misuse

of American Might (New York, 2005), p.328f.

8. Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘Uniting Our Enemies and Divid-

ing Our Friends’, in Harvey, p.50.

9. Joseph S. Nye Jr, Soft Power, The Means to Success in World

Politics, Public Affairs (New York, 2004), pp.127–47.

10. Calleo, p.40.

11. Hugh White, The China Choice, Why America Should Share Power (Collingwood 2012), p.5f.

The Chinese aircraft-carrier Liaoning, earlier a partly built carrier constructed in Russia named the Varayag and purchased clandestinely by China, undergoing sea trials in 2012

New Zealand International Review15

The last issue of the NZIR (vol 37, no 1) contains the text of a talk

given to the NZIIA’s Wellington branch by Phil Goff, the former

minister of foreign affairs and, later, of defence. Now Opposition

spokesman for foreign affairs, he drew on his lengthy experience

in both portfolios to discuss New Zealand’s place in the world.

As Goff explained, the fundamentals are clear — New Zea-

land, small and isolated is deeply dependent on overseas markets.

Even so, we have played an almost disproportionate role as an

international citizen, particularly in overseas wars. The First and

Second World Wars1 gave us the credentials for an early seat at the

major international organisations, particularly the League of Na-

tions and the United Nations, where we have played an active part

in discussions on major international issues including the work of

the specialised agencies. Goff expressed opposition to the United

Nations Security Council permanent members’ veto and was crit-

ical of the ‘lack of will and commitment’ among member states to

reach agreement on solutions and implement them.

Making a difference: another perspective

ferent viewpoints on a given issue. Perhaps foreign policy com-

mentators have a similar disposition. Be that as it may, I offer the

following as a supplement to Goff’s views.

Walter Lippmann3 considered that to establish a balanced for-

eign policy a nation must maintain its objectives and its power in

equilibrium; its purpose within its means; its means equal to its

purposes; its commitments relative to its resources; its resourc-

es adequate to its commitments. Without these factors in line it

would not be possible to undertake an effective foreign policy.

Lippmann’s comments provide a valuable foreign policy perspec-

tive — for both small countries (New Zealand) and large (the

United States, now the world’s largest debtor nation).

The global financial crisis, the rise of militant Islam (not Islam as

such) and the growing international presence of China are signif-

icant factors for change in the current international scene. Many

countries are having to rethink both domestic and international

policies as a result of mounting debt levels. The end result may

not mean radical shifts in foreign policy, but, as the United States

has shown in relation to the Pacific, a certain on-going process

of re-emphasis and de-emphasis is required to adjust to the new

realities.

Given Hillary Clinton’s attendance at the most recent Pacific

Forum and the statements she has been making, it is surprising

then that Goff made only the briefest reference to the South Pacif-

ic — our Near North. In March 2011 Clinton made her position

quite clear. ‘Let’s... talk straight Realpolitik’, she told the United

States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ‘We are in compe-

tition with China. We have a lot of support in the region which

embraces our values.’4

Troops from Nelson who fought in the South African War of 1899–1902

The Opposition spokesman

wants to see Wellington making

its own decisions on what alli-

ances and international commit-

ments New Zealand enters into.

In deciding on the key issues, a

Labour government would be

guided by the values and princi-

ples that underpin New Zealand

society. Those principles fit us

well to become involved in in-

ternational conciliation and me-

diation issues.

It is not possible to cover in

detail the comprehensive range

of issues discussed by Goff, Phil Goff

which included climate change, Doha, disarmament, non-pro-

liferation and conflict prevention. He also referred to his wish to

rebuild the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.2

There is a comment that four economists will express five dif-

-

New Zealand International Review16

In a statement at the 2012

Forum, she modified her posi-

tion to say that the Pacific was

big enough for both China and

the United States to work to-

gether in, but an early indica-

tion of the continued competi-

tive context is the Trans-Pacific

Partnership negotiations, the

terms of which we do not yet

know but which promise to

have a profound effect on our

trading relationships and inter-

nal regulatory processes. China

is not a party to the TPP and is

watching developments closely,

particularly as New Zealand’s

military/defence relation-

ship with Washington firms

up. US Assistant Secretary of

State Kurt Campbell wants to

see New Zealand undertake

‘strong dialogue’ with China,5

but it will require refined dip-

lomatic choreography for New

Zealand to maintain an appro-

priate balance in relations with

the two major powers and Aus-

tralia. The situation is rendered

even more complex by the

ready embrace of our closest

with the Pacific, we might also adopt some fa’a pasifika attitudes.

Dealing with the Bainimarama government is no easy task. Suva

is unhappy with the language and attitudes displayed by Canberra

and Wellington since the 2006 coup and remains confused by a

sanctions policy which most recently denied a visa to the CEO of

the National Provident Fund to hold a series of meetings in Aus-

tralia with investment advisers. If sanctions are designed to target

only those involved in the coup, this particular visa refusal would

appear to go further and affect every Fijian worker. Perhaps the

narrow interpretation given to sanctions by Canberra is more in-

dicative of internal trade union politics in Australia than the over-

all requirements of relations with an important Pacific partner.

Elections callsFor their part Australia and New Zealand continue to stress the

need for elections in Fiji. Surely elections are only part of what

a functioning democracy is all about. Governance, the rule of

relevant law and working governmental structures are also vital.

There have been ten elections in Fiji since 1972 and five coups.

That represents a coup every two elections or every eight years.

Elections as such seem not to hold the answer to Fiji’s deeply com-

plex socio-political problems. In relation to the latest problems

concerning constitutional reform, Murray McCully, New Zea-

land’s current foreign minister, said that ‘these things are often

more complex than they appear on the surface’.8 That indeed is

the beginning of wisdom. It might also be said that in the Pacific

states generally the basic requirements of democracy are not no-

ticeably in evidence. Corruption is endemic.

As other powers become more involved in the Pacific, it is

time to recognise that Fiji’s isolation has worked to exclude the

dominant South Pacific state from a leading role in a number

Walter Lippman

Hillary Clinton

ally, Australia, not with New Zealand but with the United States.

Understandable comments Goff welcomes New Zealand’s bilateral co-operation with these

countries, but he does not wish to surrender decision-making to

the judgment of officials or statesman in Washington and Can-

berra. Given New Zealand’s long-term desire for an ‘independent’

foreign policy, Goff’s comments are understandable. The difficul-

ties, however, lie in the detail.

China is deeply involved with Fiji, a contact Suva welcomes.

Moreover, at their celebration of 50 years of independence in 2012

the Samoan prime minister welcomed Chinese aid to his coun-

try, noting that Beijing could provide development assistance that

neither Australia nor New Zealand could. So far, China has made

aid commitments of about US$600 million for infrastructure,

technology and agriculture in the Pacific. According to a report by

the ANZ Bank, trade between China and the Pacific Islands has

risen from US$180 million in 2001 to US$1.5 billion in 2010.6

Some commentators consider Chinese aid to be ‘non-transparent’

and debt-generating. As Steven Ratuva says, however, ‘the Pacific

Island states realise they need to move on as mature global citizens

and look for alternative alliances outside their immediate post-

colonial circle controlled by Australia and New Zealand’.7

There is a further dimension. In spite of some rapprochement

the relationship between New Zealand and Fiji remains strained.

Let me state again, I do not condone coups. But if we are talking

about realism in foreign policy (as Hillary Clinton says she is)

and we continue to see ourselves as having a special relationship

Suva

Murray McCullyof key issues currently exercising

all the Forum states, particular-

ly those framing adjustments to

regional policies on trade agree-

ments being negotiated with

Australia and New Zealand and

the European Union. Pacific

states’ unease about these nego-

tiations has been expressed by

their seeking an independent ad-

viser on the regional trade nego-

tiations — Pacer Plus — as well

as for the Economic Partnership

Agreement with the European

New Zealand International Review17

Union. Fiji may not at present

be a full member of the Forum.

It is, however, a fully accepted

and respected member of the

Melanesian Spearhead Group,

which contains the wealth and

power of the Pacific. In 2013 Fiji

takes over as chair of the Non-

Aligned plus China group.

The Pacific Forum and oth-

er countries have produced the

Cairns Compact, an agreement

open door.

In 1973 Norman Kirk, then prime minister and minister of for-

eign affairs, said:

To base our foreign policy on moral principles is the most en-

lightened form of self-interest. What is morally right is likely

to be politically right. What appears in the short term to be a

part of expediency is all too likely to lead into a blind alley.’10

Like Goff, Norman Kirk saw New Zealand pursuing a more in-

dependent foreign policy. He wanted frankness and openness in

the government’s public discussions of foreign policy and a more

magnanimous approach to the distribution of development assis-

tance. It is 40 years since Kirk’s comments, but President Obama

has underlined the problems in our new world of an over-empha-

sis on morality in foreign policy.

Veto criticismPhil Goff is critical of the Security Council veto to block a col-

lective response to assist opponents of the Assad regime in Syria.

Perhaps New Zealand can best support multilateralism through

promoting what Goff describes as a ‘values and evidence-based

approach’ to the problems the world confronts. This may be so,

and if New Zealand is elected to the Security Council next year we

could usefully work for reform at the United Nations, including

the veto. There is no denying the terrible crimes committed by the

Assad regime (and other similarly disposed authorities elsewhere).

The question is, if New Zealand, through the United Nations, in-

tervenes in Syria then what? Collective will and a sense of purpose

are not sufficient. Nor should we imagine that the global rule of

law is an inevitability. The real question is whether powerful states

will live up to their responsibilities. On the evidence to date the

reply would seem to be not really.

Goff refers to the problems of countries ‘acting in their self-in-

terest and not the interests of the wider international community’.

Has it ever been different? Thucydides records an early example

of ruthless self-interest in the Athenian dialogue with the hapless

Melians during the Peloponnesian War.11 This may be an extreme

example of so-called realism in foreign policy, but international

relations cannot be divorced from the realities and complexities

— even perversities — of human nature.

Syria may be a headline issue which, with some justice, pro-

duces a sense of outrage within the international community. But

a well-founded foreign policy assumes a strong domestic policy.

Peter O’Neill

designed to co-ordinate aid to the Pacific. China has rejected an

invitation to join the compact. Clearly Beijing wants to run its

own development assistance programmes. Pacific countries are

well aware of China’s position.

Aid realignmentPerhaps the developing situation in the Pacific was reflected in the

remarks made recently in Sydney by PNG Prime Minister Peter

O’Neill, where he called for Australia’s aid strategy in Papua New

Guinea to be geared towards his government’s development pri-

orities and programmes. He emphasised economic infrastructure,

education and public service and stated that what he wanted was

a ‘total realignment’ of the Australian aid programme.9 O’Neill’s

unease will have a sympathetic resonance among Papua New

Guinea’s Pacific partners.

It would have been useful to have Goff’s analysis on how he

sees a Labour government dealing with these complex and devel-

oping issues in the area in which, internationally, New Zealand is

Norman Kirk

Barack Obamaregarded as having some pre-em-

inence.

Goff mentions human rights

as an issue with which, during

his time as foreign minister, he

was closely identified. His po-

sition reflected New Zealand’s

long and well-documented in-

volvement in human rights is-

sues, but when deciding current

priorities it is pertinent to recall

President Obama’s salutary re-

marks on accepting the 2009

Nobel Peace Prize:

the promotion of human

rights cannot be about ex-

hortation alone. At times,

it must be coupled with

painstaking diplomacy. I

know that engagement with

repressive regimes lacks the

satisfying purity of indigna-

tion. But I also know that

sanctions without outreach

— and condemnation with-

out discussion — can carry

forward a crippling status

quo. No repressive regime

can move down a new path

unless it has the choice of an

New Zealand International Review18

With debt levels at an historic high and some of our tradition-

al markets showing signs of weakness, New Zealand needs to be

cautious about spreading itself too widely internationally. Many

Western governments struggle to present an appearance of busi-

ness as usual, but, after four years of the Great Recession, there is

little realistic prospect of a return to the ‘old normal’. As Colin

James says in ‘Making Big Decisions for the Future’ (3 December

2012) after the global financial crisis, which he characterises as a

disjunctive event, ‘the social, economic and political landscape,

the context for fiscal decisions, will be qualitatively different’.

James looks to fiscal policy to be resilient. As with fiscal policy so

with foreign policy.

Varied problemsNew Zealand’s problems are varied and solutions will inevita-

bly need to be eclectic. This in no way ignores the need for a

wide-ranging, hard-headed and realistic assessment of the op-

tions, but it does mean introducing not only a great deal more

pragmatism (until recently a strength in New Zealand) but also an

understanding of the processes of human motivation, psychology,

anthropology (particularly in the South Pacific) and organisation-

al behaviour. The economist John Kay emphasises the need for

meticulous observation of what people, businesses and govern-

ments actually do.

We cannot foresee the full range of outcomes or the options

available but, as noted in a previous article,12 leadership must

ensure that policies reflect the basic principles that nurtured our

own economy and society. But no policy or society remains stat-

free trade agreements are used by other countries as vehicles for

their own agendas. It is well to remember, however, that aspects

of the TPP do not sit easily with the view expressed in some quar-

ters that it is a ‘model free-trade agreement’.13 International trade

agreements are not just to do with trade. They may influence,

shape, limit and even on occasion pre-empt domestic social poli-

cy. For this reason, the proposed TPP should be open and subject

to challenge.

Important contributionsIn the previous article mentioned above, I have referred to the

contribution made by David Skilling to the foreign policy debate.

The current secretary to the Treasury, Gabriel Mahklouf, has also

outlined some issues relevant to New Zealand’s foreign policy —

New Zealand’s dependence on foreign capital and the need for

foreign direct investment as providing a direct line to internation-

al expertise, technology and ideas. The government’s former sci-

ence adviser, the late Sir Paul Callaghan, emphasised the need for

technical and entrepreneurial innovation if our society is to meet

our expectations in a changing world of the 21st century. There is

no question that these aspects are important as we consider inputs

to foreign policy.

This all adds up to the need for a coherent national debate on

foreign policy settings. A new government could greatly assist by

establishing the structure and key issues for that national debate.

Globalisation has deeply affected New Zealand as a country, the

way in which we approach international issues and particularly

our way of life. People now expect to become more involved in

decision-making processes at all levels of society as, increasingly,

foreign policy decisions are included.

Foreign policy is an area where not only the Opposition but

also the government could now demonstrate a willingness to un-

dertake collaborative governance in relation to issues such as those

commented on above, particularly by providing full disclosure of

terms of any proposed agreements (the TPP for instance) well be-

fore any commitment is made.

NOTES1. Our first overseas intervention was, of course, the South Af-

rican War of 1899–1902, where New Zealand was quick to

offer troops to support the British cause.

2. The process of ‘restructuring’ MFAT may by now have ad-

vanced to the point where a ‘rebuild’ would amount to a total

reconstruction.

3. Walter Lippmann (1899–1974), journalist, media critic, phi-

losopher.

4. Financial Times, 4 Mar 2011.

5. Kurt Campbell, Dominion Post, 17 Dec 2013.

6. Quoted in Steven Ratuva, New Zealand Listener, 7 May 2011.

7. Ibid.

8. Hon Murray McCully, interview, Radio New Zealand, 3 Jan

2013.

9. Post-Courier (Papua New Guinea), 29 Nov 2012.

10. Norman Kirk, Introduction to the Annual Report of the Min-istry of Foreign Affairs for the year ended March 1973.

11. Thucydides 431 BC, The Peloponnesian War, Ch. XVII: ‘The

Fate of Melos’.

12. Gerald McGhie, NZ International Review, vol 37, no 5 (2012).

13. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, vol 35,

no 6 (2011).Sir Paul Callaghan

Gabriel Mahklouf

ic. With some 30.7 per cent of

New Zealand’s population now

categorised as non-European,

New Zealand’s traditional val-

ues may be subject to a rather

different emphasis in the 21st

century. In projecting New Zea-

land’s values and interests over-

seas, a new government could

greatly assist in rethinking, if

not the traditional values of our

society, then at least the shift of

emphases emerging from our

increasingly multicultural so-

ciety. New Zealand must take

into account the implications

for our foreign policy not only

of multiculturalism but also of

the adjustments to our internal

structures that have occurred in

the light of the on-going finan-

cial crisis and the emergence of

new markets.

The implications of the

Trans-Pacific Partnership could

well play a central role in such

a debate. Free trade agreements

as such have been used by New

Zealand for opening up mar-

kets for years (the Australian

apple market, for example), so

we should not be surprised if

New Zealand International Review19

In November 2012 a team from the NZIIA went to Port Moresby

at the invitation of the Papua New Guinea Department of For-

eign Affairs and Trade to provide diplomatic training to 30 new

foreign service officers. This followed an earlier course in March,

which was reported on in the July/August 2012 issue of the NZIR

(vol 37, no 4). Those invoved were the NZIIA director, Peter

Kennedy, Lance Beath, a senior lecturer in Victoria University of

Wellington’s School of Government, and Peter Nichols, the NZI-

IA Wellington branch chair.

The second training course was fortunate in that the New

Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hon Murray Mc-

Cully, was in Papua New Guinea and took time out from his busy

schedule to address the course and to give the participants the

benefit of his perspective on what he expects from diplomats. Mc-

Cully emphasised that ministers are very busy and managing time

is challenging. Accordingly, policy advice from advisers needs to

be concise, coherent and well argued. Lengthy papers that repeat

points can be frustrating and waste time. Additionally, he said,

the real foreign minister is the prime minister, and he, or she, will

undoubtedly be even busier. The quality of foreign policy advice

must be sound and if there are errors, then the prime minister will

have a poor image of his minister and the department.

In response to a question about the qualities and characteris-

tics that define a good diplomat, McCully reiterated that a diplo-

mat’s advice needs to be concise and coherent. But the qualities

of a good diplomat are more than that. He stated that diplomats

need to be enthusiastic about their profession and committed.

Training Papua New Guinea diplomatsPeter Nichols and Peter Kennedy report on the NZIIA’s involvement in the second foreign service training course in Port Moresby in November 2012.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully calls on the PNG Diplomat Training Course conducted by the NZIIA. He is pictured with Peter Kennedy, Lance Beath, Peter Nichols, Lucy Bogari (the acting secretary of the PNG Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), members of the minister’s delegation and trainee PNG diplomats

With regards to leadership, he suggested that in the space of half

a day, a minister could quickly get an understanding about how

well a post is operated. He suggested most posts he visited had

motivated staff who were well led, knowledgeable about all as-

pects of the region they were serving in and well connected.

Asked about women diplomats, McCully said that both wom-

en and men are promoted based on their individual merit. To fur-

ther questions, he responded that New Zealand very much values

its relationship with a growing China, but New Zealand also has

very strong relations and interests in the South Pacific and espe-

cially with Australia.

The Papua New Guinea diplomats very much appreciated the

opportunity to hear McCully’s remarks, which were both timely

and apt for this second training session for PNG foreign service

officers.

The course in session

New Zealand International Review20

With much concern I read what Lois and Martin Griffiths wrote

under the title ‘The Palestinian story: to exist is to resist’ in the

NZIR (vol 37, no 5 (2012), pp.4–9). Unfortunately the Griffiths’s

article shows a clear lack of background knowledge about the is-

sues brought to our attention.  

The authors do not differentiate between Palestinians who live

inside Israel and therefore are citizens of Israel, and those who are

not, and the reader who does not know where places mentioned

in the article are has no idea whether a story is about people who

are citizens of Israel or those who are living under the authori-

ty of the Israel Defence Forces in the West Bank. These are two

different populations. The Griffiths omit to mention that every

Palestinian, a citizen of Israel or not, has the full right of appeal

to the Israeli Supreme Court. Indeed, Palestinians often win their

cases — for example, Supreme Court decisions have made the

government change the siting of the security barrier in a way that

balances Israel’s need for security with the Palestinians’ need to

reach their fields. I would expect that the Griffiths would men-

tion that the security barrier that Israel built was the result of the

dreadful Palestinian terrorist attacks in which more than 1000

Israelis were killed in buses, restaurants, malls and hotels; and the

rate of these attacks dropped sharply because of this defensive bar-

rier, which killed nobody. Israelis who were killed cannot return

to life; the fence and the wall, on the other hand, can be removed

after peace is achieved.

For Israelis, the credibility of what the Griffiths write is not

enhanced by their quotations of Dr Ilan Pappe and Gideon Levy.

Pappe (now teaching in the United Kingdom) was discredited as

an academic at Haifa University, was a former Communist Party

candidate for the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) and support-

When truth is twisted and facts are ignoredMordechai Kedar challenges the views about

in a recent article.

Mordechai Kedar is a member of the Department of Arabic atBar-Ilan University in Israel.

ed an MA thesis which was found in court to be a forgery and

libel. Gideon Levy of the Israeli left-wing tabloid Ha’aretz does

not speak or read Arabic and thus relies on translators who are

uniformly hostile to Israel.

The Griffiths relate to all the Palestinians as indigenous people

of this country. This shows an ignorance of our history. Many

‘Palestinians’ still carry names which testify that they are not

originally from Palestine, such as al-Iraqi, al-Masri (the Egyp-

tian), al-Hourani and al-Halabi (Syrians), al-Sourani, al-Tarabulsi

(Lebanese), al-Zarqawi, al-Karaki (Jordanian) and many similar

names. Most of them immigrated to this country during the first

half of the 20th century, mainly to work in the villages and towns

which Jews built after the establishment of the British Mandate.

It is particularly strange to read in the Griffiths article that

Israel is responsible for the situation of Christians in Bethlehem.

Christian emigration from Bethlehem has accelerated since the

transfer of power to the Palestinian Authority in 1995; the decline

came about because the Muslims confiscated their assets, dese-

crated their churches and intimidated them. And, in fact, Israel is

the only state in the Middle East where the Christian population

is stable; Christians are leaving all Arab countries.

Untenable claimThe Griffiths claim that ‘the issue of Israel and the occupied ter-

ritories is not religion’. If they only bothered to read the Hamas

charter they would see how deeply Palestinians are committed to

holy jihad against the Jews, not because they are Israelis or Zion-

ists, but because they are Jews, to wit:

The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and

kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which

will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come

on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is

a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).

The entire state of Israel — according to Hamas — should be

wiped off the map. And, to remind the Griffiths, Hamas won

the majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in

2006.

A UN investigation, headed by New Zealander Sir Geoffrey

Palmer, concluded that Israel has the full right under international

law to blockade the streaming of arms and ammunition to Gaza

by sea. It is pathetic to read that the Griffiths still think that the

Mavi Marmara, which carried dozens of terrorists and unidenti-

fied cargo to Gaza, had the right to do so.

Seemingly, the Griffiths think that once the Israeli–Palestini-

an struggle is solved, all the problems of the Middle East will be

solved as well and peace will reign all over the region. Apparently

they think that Israel — 64 years old — is responsible for the

Sunni–Shi’ite struggle which started 1350 years ago; for the mil-

lion killed in the 1980–88 bloody war between Iran and Iraq; for

the fact that the Alawi regime of Assad in Syria has butchered so

far some 37,000 Syrian citizens; for the agonies of the Christian

Copts in Egypt; for the fact that half a million Algerians were

slaughtered by their brethren between 1992 and 1998; and for

the tribal fights in Libya.

Dr Ilan Pappe Gideon Levy

New Zealand International Review21

Great catastrophePalestinians and others relate to the Israeli–Arab struggle as a ‘nak-

ba’. The word in Arabic means an enormous, gigantic tragedy, a

catastrophe. This is the word used in the Arab–Islamic discourse

to denote the start of the ‘Palestine’ calamity, in which Islam’s

Holy Land of Palestine fell captive in what Arabs consider as a

modern-day crusade by Zionism, the emissary of European impe-

rialism. When Israel’s 1948 War of Independence ended, 600,000

Arabs, formerly of Palestine/Eretz Israel, remained in refugee

camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (under Jor-

danian occupation), the Gaza Strip (under Egyptian occupation),

Egypt and Libya.

The catastrophe was indeed great and its dimensions stemmed

not only from the physical disaster that befell the Arabs but also

— and perhaps primarily — from the psychological tragedy that

has accompanied the physical for 64 years: Israel survived the War

of Independence and the later wars it was forced into. It succeed-

ed, developed, expanded and flourished while the Palestinians

were left with only a shattered dream. The state of Israel is the

mirror in which the Arabs perceive their failure; while the Jew-

ish people celebrates its 64 years of renewed independence, after

about 1900 years of exile, the Arabs mark 64 years of continuous

shortcomings.

To an extent, the years of struggle against Zionism served to

unite the Arabs in Palestine/Land of Israel under the leadership of

and the state of Israel was established three years after their defeat.

Partition voteAfter the UN partition vote in November 1947, the Jewish pop-

ulation in Israel accepted the UN decision while the Palestinians

together with five Arab states declared war on Israel. They did not

succeed in destroying Israel, and the Arab-allotted territories in-

stead were occupied by Egypt [Gaza] and Jordan [the West Bank].

For nineteen years they could have established a Palestinian state,

but the Palestinians and the Arab states did not.

The Jewish people of Israel dried up swamps and erected com-

munities, while the Palestinians were kept in refugee camps in

the Arab states. In Israel the immigrant transit camps disappeared

during the 1950s and Jewish immigrants created a new, optimis-

tic Israeli society; the Arabs (and their descendants) were forced

to remain as refugees to this day, ‘branded’ by their host countries

so that they do not integrate into their populations. Israel built a

new society, which has, over the years, increasingly bridged the

cultural gaps among the various Jewish groups who have returned

to their homeland from the four corners of the earth. The desire

to achieve economic independence powered the wheels of Israel’s

economy and brought it to the forefront of the developed world.

Israeli industry expanded into all types of products; Israeli agri-

culture and technology are world-renowned; the shekel is one of

the world’s strong currencies. The Palestinians, on the other hand,

have made a vocation of their refugee status, developed beggary

into an art and transformed their misery into a tool used to weigh

on the conscience of the world.

From its inception, Israel broke up all the Jewish armed groups

that had been operating prior to the establishment of the state: the

Haganah, the Irgun (Etzel) and the Lehi were disbanded and their

arms were confiscated. Events came to a head in June 1948, when

the Altalena, a ship carrying Etzel weapons needed for the battle

over Jerusalem, was sunk. Ben Gurion, acting out of a sense of

state primacy, would not even sanction this arms shipment. With-

out debating whether or not he acted justifiably, it is undeniable

that Israel survived its first few years, which were immeasurably

more difficult than any in its history, because the nation acted

‘as one person’, if not always ‘with one heart’. State primacy tri-

umphed over factionalism, and the state gained ascendancy over

all the groups under its wing, including those imposed by force.

Splintered opposition The Palestinians, by comparison, became progressively more

splintered; one after another, there arose armed groups such as

1948

Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Hu-

seini, who was wanted by the

British during the Second World

War for his pro-Nazi activities

and resided in Berlin during

the war. He recruited thousands

of Balkan Muslims for the SS.

Many, including some of us Is-

raelis, are unaware of this point:

the leader of Palestine’s Arabs

was part of the machinery of

destruction used to murder Eu-

ropean Jewry. Nevertheless, Hu-

seini and his Nazi patrons failed

Altalena

New Zealand International Review22

al-Qawmiyun al-Arab, al-Feda’iyun, al-Sa’iqa, al-’Asifa, Fatah,

the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, the Arab Liberation

Front, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and many others. Not only did these

groups not co-operate; they often fought one another and spilled

each other’s blood. The last round of violence occurred in June

2007 when Hamas’ militias took over the Gaza Strip, mercilessly

shooting Palestinian Authority security personnel and hurling to

the street those who had fled to the upper floors of multistory

buildings.

Immediately after its establishment, the state of Israel was

awarded international recognition and later joined the United

Nations as a member state. Israel has never been involved in war

against a non-Arab or non-Islamic country, and there have even

been talks about its joining NATO. The Palestinians, by contrast,

have become embroiled in strife with everyone around them, and

their Arab ‘brethren’ have killed far more of them than have been

casualties of their conflict with Israel: in September 1970, the Jor-

danian Army killed approximately 20,000 Palestinians because

they managed to dominate large areas in the north of the country;

in August 1976, the Syrian Army butchered thousands of Pales-

tinians at Tel al-Za’tar; in September 1982, the Lebanese Chris-

tian militias killed hundreds of Palestinians in Beirut’s Sabra and

Shatilla refugee camps (these killings are attributed by the Grif-

fiths to Israel because IDF forces were in the vicinity and allowed

the Lebanese Christian Maronites freedom of action); in August

1990, the Iraqi Army invaded Kuwait and destroyed the country,

with Arafat supporting Saddam Hussein wholeheartedly. When

Kuwait was liberated in March 1991, the Kuwaitis expelled an

estimated 300,000 Palestinians who had been working in Kuwait

for many years, in revenge for the latter’s support of Hussein; Lib-

ya banished thousands of Palestinians from its territory after the

signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993; in April 2003, immediately

after Saddam Hussein was toppled, hundreds of knife-wielding

Iraqis burst into Baghdadi Palestinian homes in order to exact

revenge for years of Palestinian support of Saddam Hussein, and

four new Palestinian refugee camps were created as a result.

Equal rightsThe citizens of Israel — both Jewish and Arab — enjoy equal

rights under the law, while the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

have not been awarded citizenship to this day. Moreover, the Leb-

anese constitution expressly specifies that Palestinian refugees will

never gain citizenship, even though some of them emigrated from

Lebanon to Israel prior to the War of Independence (1948), pri-

marily in order to work in then-developing Haifa and in various

Jewish communities established in northern Israel, such as Rosh

Pina, Ilaniya, Zichron Yaacov and others. For more than 60 years,

Lebanese law has barred Palestinian refugees from employment in

close to 70 different professions. This discriminatory list of for-

bidden professions has recently been shortened to about twenty

different occupations; no one on earth has uttered a single word

about this blatant discrimination. By contrast, an Arab in Israel

can study and work in any profession he or she wishes to engage

in. No wonder then that Arabs make every effort to live in Israel,

be it via fictitious ‘visa marriages’ to Israeli Arab women or by

infiltrating the borders, primarily in the south.

I am far from claiming that Israel is a heaven on earth, but the

Griffiths forgot to mention that thousands of Palestinians who

live in Jerusalem applied to become Israeli citizens, and the same

is happening with the Druze on the Golan Heights, which were

occupied from Syria in 1967. Apparently these people prefer to be

citizens of Israel rather than of any Arab or even Palestinian state.

Palestinians — both Israeli and not Israeli citizens — watch with

great concern what is happening all over the Arab world since

December 2010: the atrocities in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen,

Bahrain and especially Syria are heart-breaking to any human

being, and many Palestinians draw the inevitable conclusion —

with all the problems, it is much better to live under Israeli rule

of law than to suffer under the corrupt rule of the Palestinian

Authority or Hamas, which is internationally defined as a terror

organisation.

Things are not ideal in the Middle East, no doubt, and a dem-

ocratic state like Israel has to find the balance between its security

and livelihood of people who are hostile to it, especially if terror

attacks come from their places.

Unlike other people who immigrated to places in new parts

of the world, we — Jews — returned to our forefathers’ land

from which we were expelled 1942 years ago and renewed our

independence. We do not seek wars with our Arab neighbours

and wish to find a way to live in peace with them. Unfortunately,

peace in the Middle East is given only to the invincible, and as

long as they still dream of getting rid of us we will not enjoy real

peace. When our neighbours accept Israel as a legitimate state of

the Jewish people, peace will be achieved.

Palestinian children killed by the Syrian Army

Iraqi soldiers enter Kuwait in 1990

New Zealand International Review23

The second in a two-part series of symposia to celebrate the 40th

anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and New Zea-

land was held in Beijing on 4 December 2012. It was hosted by

the highly respected Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS),

in partnership with the New Zealand Contemporary China Re-

search Centre at Victoria University of Wellington(VUW) and

the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The next gen-

eration tasked with carrying these important bilateral ties forward

was well represented in the audience by CASS scholars and no-

tably by a group of nearly 30 VUW students on a study tour to

China.

Unsurprisingly there were some similarities in the two pro-

grammes, but they were not mirror images. The one offered in

Wellington on 5 September 2012 had a more distinct reflective

aspect to it, which was appropriate for the first in the series. That

provided in Beijing was more obviously focused on ‘where to from

here?’ As the first symposium had done (see the report on it in the

NZIR, vol 37, no 6) but this time to a largely Chinese audience,

the Beijing programme, too, had a strong emphasis on the devel-

opment of the bilateral relationship and its current trends, and on

opportunities to broaden and deepen the two-way engagement.

In his welcoming address the secretary-general of CASS,

Huang Haotao, set a positive tone in observing that distance had

been no barrier to the growth of strong and comprehensive links

underpinning a mature, mutually beneficial and respectful re-

lationship. He referred to ‘multifaceted ties’ in fields as diverse

China–New Zealand: an endless work in progress

CONFERENCE REPORT

Brian Lynch reports on the second China–New Zealand symposium, held in Beijing last December to commemorate the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

as disaster relief, the environment, finance, food safety and food

security. At the people-to-people level, understanding was be-

ing encouraged by the growth in two-way tourism and student

numbers and by the fact that 29 cities and provinces in China

were now ‘twinned’ with New Zealand counterparts. The boom

in trade since the free trade agreement was signed in 2008 came

in for special mention, as did New Zealand’s continuing unique

position of being the only developed country to have established

formal trade accords with both China and the Hong Kong special

administrative region.

Following the CASS secretary-general, the VUW deputy

vice-chancellor, Professor Neil Quigley, also spoke of the impor-

tance of the economic interaction, including investment that was

a model for others, and valuable educational co-operation, of

which a good example was the staff exchange scheme between

VUW and CASS. He noted that the free trade agreement had

helped cushion New Zealand against the most severe impacts of

the global financial crisis and identified development assistance in

the South Pacific as an emerging area of worthy bilateral co-op-

eration.

Huge importance The first session of the symposium, chaired by the current presi-

dent of the NZIIA, Sir Douglas Kidd, featured two former am-

bassadors from each country and the present New Zealand am-

bassador. In his introductory remarks, Sir Douglas recalled the

acceptance by New Zealand in 1972 that the country could not

afford to continue to ignore ‘one quarter of humanity’. He de-

scribed today’s relationship as ‘hugely’ important to New Zealand

and a dominant factor in encouraging recognition by New Zea-

landers of their country’s Asian destiny. Chen Ming Ming had

been China’s popular ambassador to New Zealand from 2001 to

2005. He gave some intriguing insights into the initial discussion

about exploring a free trade agreement, where he had been instru-

mental, and the eventual bilateral decision to press ahead that by

normal standards had been reached remarkably quickly. He saw

significant promise for future collaboration in dairy farming, the

film industry and food safety, tourism and education, and co-op-

eration in regional forums where New Zealand was able to help

China understand and ‘navigate’ the complex emerging architec-

ture.

Chris Elder, New Zealand’s ambassador to China 1993–98

and a long-time practitioner in the relationship, will author the

volume that will provide a permanent record of the two sympo-

sia. In Beijing he revisited with a light touch some of the trials

and tribulations New Zealand had encountered in establishing its

early presence in China. Overviewing the state of the relationship,

his memorable concluding comment was that ‘history interests

us but the future compels us’. His very recent personal contribu-

tion to the China–New Zealand story has just been published by

Victoria University Press under the title of New Zealand’s China

Delegates to the symposium

New Zealand International Review24

Experience: Its Genesis, Triumphs and Occasional Moments of Less

Than Complete Success and contains many compelling examples

of cross-cultural encounters. Zhang Yuanyuan was China’s senior

representative in New Zealand from 2006 to 2008. He said the

relationship showed how, despite different social and political sys-

tems, two partners could still build trust and co-operate produc-

tively. Examples he gave of where New Zealand experience was of

interest to China were environmental protection, the rule of law

and racial interaction.

Tony Browne had been ambassador in Beijing in the very

formative years of 2004–09 and like Chen Ming Ming had

played an influential role. He emphasised that both countries had

real if different interests at stake at the time, and had seized the

short-term window of opportunity to lock into place the much

acclaimed ‘four firsts’: recognition by New Zealand of China as a

market economy, conclusion of the negotiations on China’s access

to the WTO, and to have started and successfully completed the

free trade agreement deal. The current New Zealand ambassador

to China, Carl Worker, described the free trade agreement as the

‘practical, bed-rock base’ of the relationship and noted that bilat-

eral trade was approaching the balance point. His focus was firmly

on likely measures to realise gains in areas highlighted in the gov-

ernment’s ambitious ‘China Strategy’, and drew special attention

to research and development co-operation and exciting potential

he saw in the services trade, including direct investment.

Wider region The second session shifted the symposium’s agenda to the wid-

er Asia–Pacific region and to where the two countries’ interests

might converge on issues around security and regional integra-

tion. In the latter context a topic of interest was the risk of com-

petition rather than complementarity between the Trans-Pacific

Partnership, to which China does not currently belong, and the

Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which

excludes the United States. Zhang Yunling

(CASS) expected countries in the region to

concentrate more on stimulating domestic

consumption, reducing the role of exports

in their growth strategies, and finding new

markets. He asked where the scope lay to

inject new dynamism into regional growth

and believed this would require big changes

to fiscal and monetary policies including on

the part of but not only the United States.

Of interest to New Zealand, which is an

active participant in both the TPP and the

RCEP, Professor Zhang thought work on

the planned China–Japan–South Korea free

trade agreement could move faster than ei-

ther of the more broad-based schemes.

Clare Fearnley is director of the Asia Re-

gional Division in the New Zealand Minis-

try of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She noted

that countries of the Asia–Pacific region had

not had a history of shared regional identity.

The regional architecture was still at a com-

paratively early stage of development. The

evolving constellation of regional groupings

and processes was inevitably messy at this

stage with identifiable gaps and overlaps.

Brian Lynch and Sir Douglas Kidd

However, this was not a major concern for New Zealand and

there was no obvious ‘big bang’ architectural solution. There was

a high degree of complementarity possible between the TPP and

RCEP. Ministers had made clear that New Zealand saw the TPP

as an inclusive piece of regional architecture that was open to Chi-

na and other regional players. There was still a definite place for

APEC in bringing major economies together and in fostering the

Free Trade Agreement Asia Pacific. On security issues Fearnley

said New Zealand emphasised the importance of promoting the

habit of regional co-operation on difficult issues. It was slow going

but the direction of evolution was positive. Han Feng (CASS) said

China’s priority was to advance domestic reform; its approach to

its close neighbourhood was one of ‘diluting regional contradic-

tions’.

Marc Lanteigne (VUW) noted the contrast in the region

between ‘anarchic regimes’, where the emphasis is on consen-

sus-building, and ‘hierarchic regimes’ that are alliance-based. De-

spite that difference he noted there had been good progress in

addressing common issues arising from traditional and non-tra-

ditional security threats. He acknowledged the US ‘rebalancing’

in Asia was a significant new factor, as was the emergence of the

East Asia Summit as an influential new economic entity. Neither

he saw as potentially destabilising developments. In his view the

return of ‘balance of power’ behaviour familiar from an earlier

era was unlikely. There were two discussants in this session: Shi

Yongming (China Institute of International Studies) and Profes-

sor Xiaoming Huang, the director of the China Research Centre

at VUW. They both referred to the need for big power interests

to be reconciled in the South Pacific as well as in the context of

emerging regional architecture.

Soft powerThe third session took the conference away from the realm of high

policy with its focus on risks, options and scenarios into the field

New Zealand International Review25

of ‘soft power’, where some would argue ‘things actually get done’.

Wen Powles is international strategy adviser at Te Papa, Museum

of New Zealand. She spoke of the contribution of ‘cultural diplo-

macy’, which as a factor in New Zealand’s links with China can

be traced back to an exhibition of Chinese arts and artefacts as

early as 1937 that had a significant impact in New Zealand. In

the 40th anniversary year Te Papa partnered with major Chinese

museums to host three exhibitions that offer Chinese audiences a

direct experience of New Zealand culture and heritage. Professor

Liu Shusen, the director of the New Zealand Centre at Peking

University, outlined the programme of courses, studies and staff

exchanges that underpin the robust health of China–New Zea-

land educational links. There was growing bilateral momentum

in areas of study where New Zealand had particular expertise and

China had identified special needs, such as pastoral irrigation and

sheep breeding.

The largest non-China producer of documentaries on Chi-

na is a company called Natural History New Zealand, which has

been based in China for the past seventeen years. Its work is car-

ried in 180 countries, and has been led throughout by Michael

Stedman. His credentials were impeccable for this occasion. He

stressed that one could not visit China and be indifferent, and

noted that the ‘China experience’ was a journey without end. He

had learned that the path to building constructive relationships

required patience and persistence, a genuine interest in Chinese

culture, and a willingness to step outside what most Kiwi expa-

triates might normally regard as their comfort zone. Paul Clark,

Auckland University, and Guo Chunmei, China Institute of Con-

temporary International Relations, provided additional commen-

tary for this session. Professor Clark perceived a dearth of knowl-

edge about each other in both countries; for its part New Zealand

had to make greater efforts ‘to open up more to China’. He and

Guo Chunmei agreed that cultural activities including those of

the Confucius institutes were a critical component of the bilateral

relationship.

Economic aspectsAn overview of economic and trade aspects of the relationship in

the fourth session ended the symposium. The New Zealand trade

commissioner, Alan Young, drew on his long experience to make

some sobering points. There were pleasing trends showing up in

the trade balance and New Zealand was sending lower volumes

of unfinished or partly finished products. The services trade was

becoming more prominent, driven by higher student and tourist

numbers and most notably by the substantial increase in two-way

direct investment; he noted that Fonterra was aiming to establish

a new dairy farm in China every two to three months. However,

there were still downsides to be addressed. The free trade agree-

ment had unleashed a surge in trade, but New Zealand compa-

nies had yet to take full advantage of its potential. They needed

to better equip themselves for operating in China’s complex and

challenging regulatory environment, and to recognise the possi-

bilities available in the exponential growth occurring in China’s

corporate capability.

Professor Pei Changhong (CASS) also highlighted the free

trade agreement’s early success and believed the commodity trade

could reach NZ$15 billion by 2015 with New Zealand being in

surplus. His view, too, was that there was substantial upside to

the services trade yet untapped. Li Xuesong (CASS) is a specialist

in quantitative economics. He applied those skills to a detailed

analysis of optimistic, baseline and pessimistic scenarios over the

periods of China’s next three five-year plans. He forecast that the

economy would grow between 6.4 per cent and 7.4 per cent, with

steady improvement in per capita income and personal consump-

tion levels. China’s development priorities, in his view, were in-

creased investment in education and research, financial reforms,

faster urban growth and the reform of monopolised industries.

Jason Young (China Centre, VUW) pursued an interest in the

impacts that higher investment could have on economic growth.

Despite publicity given to recent Chinese investment in New

Zealand, especially in agriculture, total Chinese involvement in

the investment sector was still below 1 per cent overall and well

out of proportion to the high ranking China now held as New

Zealand’s second largest trading partner.

Rodney Jones, Wigram Capital Advisors, was the first of three

discussants in the final session. He also observed that while trade

was approaching parity China’s investment profile in New Zea-

land was still very low. It was important for New Zealand interests

in China or those with aspirations to establish a presence there to

be constantly aware of the need to maintain relevance; in GDP

terms the New Zealand economy would rank 22nd among the 31

Chinese provinces. Ma Tao (CASS) and Ding Dou (Peking Uni-

versity) both focused on the benefits to be realised from the free

trade agreement, the latter cautioning that New Zealand export-

ers should look for profitable niche opportunities and not expect

to be able to compete across the

breadth of the Chinese econo-

my.

Leadership changesThe timeliness of the symposi-

um was reinforced by its taking

place immediately after the ma-

jor political leadership transition

in China announced a few days

earlier at the 18th Party Con-

gress. This was not a subject for

the agreed agenda. However,

there were some interesting in-

formal assessments and asides

which gave a glimpse of the

expectations at least some Chi-

nese participants had of the new

Xi Jinping

The venue for the symposium

New Zealand International Review26

1989 Mark Pearson, Paper Tiger, New Zealand’s Part in SEATO 1954–1977, 135pp

1991 Sir Alister Mclntosh et al, New Zealand in World Affairs,Volume I, 1945–57, 204pp (reprinted)

1991 Malcolm McKinnon (ed), New Zealand in World Affairs, Volume 2, 1957–72, 261pp

1991 Roberto G. Rabel (ed), Europe without Walls, 176pp1992 Roberto G. Rabel (ed), Latin America in a Changing

World Order, 180pp1995 Steve Hoadley, New Zealand and Australia, Negotiating

Closer Economic Relations, 134pp1998 Seminar Paper, The Universal Declaration of Human

Rights, 35pp1999 Gary Hawke (ed), Free Trade in the New Millennium,

86pp1999 Stuart McMillan, Bala Ramswamy, Sir Frank Holmes,

APEC in Focus, 76pp1999 Seminar Paper, Climate Change — Implementing the

Kyoto Protocol1999 Peter Harris and Bryce Harland, China and America —

The Worst of Friends, 48pp1999 Bruce Brown (ed), New Zealand in World Affairs, Volume

3,1972–1990, 336pp2000 Malcolm Templeton, A Wise Adventure, 328pp2000 Stephen Hoadley, New Zealand United States Relations,

Friends No Longer Allies, 225pp2000 Discussion Paper, Defence Policy after East Timor2001 Amb Hisachi Owada, The Future of East Asia — The

Role of Japan, 21pp2001 Wgton Branch Study Group, Solomon Islands —

Report of a Study Group2001 Bruce Brown (ed), New Zealand and Australia — Where

are we Going?’, 102pp2002 Peter Cozens (ed)

Challenges for the Next Decade, 78pp2002 Stephen Hoadley, Negotiating Free Trade, The New

Zealand–Singapore CEP Agreement, 107pp2002 Malcolm Templeton, Protecting Antarctica, 68pp

2002 Gerald McGhie and Bruce Brown (eds), New Zealand 128pp

2004 A.C. Wilson, New Zealand and the Soviet Union 1950–1991, A Brittle Relationship, 248pp

2005 Anthony L. Smith (ed)A History of Regional and Bilateral Relations, 392pp

2005 Stephen Hoadley,Diplomacy and Dispute Management, 197pp

2005 Brian Lynch (ed)A Tribute to Sir George Laking and Frank Corner, 206pp

2006 Brian Lynch (ed)Foreign Policy Issues, 2005–2010, 200pp

2006 Malcolm Templeton, Standing Upright Here, New Zealand in the Nuclear Age 1945–1990, 400pp

2007 W David MclntyreStatesmen and Status 1907–1945, 208pp

2008 Brian Lynch (ed)Implications, 92pp

2008 Brian Lynch (ed), Border Management in an Uncertain World, 74pp

2008 Warwick E. Murray and Roberto Rabel (eds), Latin

Perspectives, 112pp2009 Terence O’Brien

World,197pp2010 Brian Lynch (ed), Celebrating 75 Years, 2 vols, 239,

293pp2011 Brian Lynch (ed), Africa, A Continent on the Move, 173pp2011 Brian Lynch and Graeme Hassall (eds), Resilience in the

203pp2012 Brian Lynch (ed), The Arab Spring, Its Origins,

Implications and Outlook, l43pp2012 Brian Lynch (ed),

Issues Facing New Zealand 2012–2017,218pp

Wellington 6140.For other publications go to www.vuw.ac.nz/nziia/Publications/list.html

NZIIA PUBLICATIONS

administration led by Xi Jinping, who is scheduled to become

president in March 2013. These comments were generally along

the lines that the new leadership would continue the emphasis

on peaceful internal development, reinvigorate the process of

economic and financial reform, persist with measures to enhance

domestic consumption, be tougher in combating corruption,

and continue to promote urbanisation as the primary ‘growth en-

gine source’ but give a higher profile to actions to improve living

standards in the rural hinterlands.

The symposium was told the priority for China offshore

would be to consolidate its standing as a responsible member of

the international community. One participant said ‘in the recent

past the world changed China, now we are told China is chang-

ing the world and we’re not sure how to manage that expecta-

tion if it is true’. It was also said: ‘in the past rising powers have

been the source of conflict; that is not to be expected of China’.

There would be no room for ‘adventures abroad’, for China had

to direct all its available resources to the pursuit of peaceful do-

mestic reform. Despite continuing tensions in the South China

Sea, there was a ‘relatively optimistic’ view expressed by Chinese

speakers that serious incidents that might lead to conflict could

be avoided. Speeches at the 18th Congress and subsequent public

remarks suggested, it was said, that the Xi Jinping administration

would be more open to the world and find ways of co-operating

with its neighbours and globally to resolve major issues.

Final observationsAs there had been at the 5 September 2012 event in Wellington,

again in Beijing there was a significant degree of satisfaction at

what the two countries had together achieved to date in build-

ing areas of useful interaction from the modest beginnings in the

early 1970s. Admittedly, from the New Zealand perspective and

notably since the free trade agreement fell into place, it has been

the commercial features of the relationship that have attracted

most attention and provided the prism through which many New

Zealanders now view China. The Beijing programme offered en-

couraging evidence that other worthwhile activities are going on

besides the business connections, in the creative, cultural, educa-

tional and research fields, and in day to day people contacts.

What did not emerge in Beijing was any pervasive sense of com-

placency from speakers on either side that ‘we’ve got it right’. A

theme prominent at the first symposium was replayed in Beijing:

this particular relationship, certainly for New Zealand, will never

be one to take for granted but always be ‘a work in progress’; never

merely transactional and technocratic but constantly in need of cre-

ative input and fresh energy and to be strategically driven.

New Zealand International Review27

Notes on reviewersDr Jon Johansson is a senior lecturer of comparative-

politics at the School of History, Philosophy, Po-litical Science and International Relations at Vic-toria University of Wellington.

Dr Anthony Smith is a fellow of the Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington.

Michael Appleton, a diplomat, wrote his master’s thesis in 2004 at the University of Cambridge on the political attitudes of young British Muslims in the United Kingdom.

Dr Beth Greener is a senior lecturer in the Politics Programme at Massey University.

BOOKSFAIRNESS AND FREEDOM:A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States

Author: David Hackett Fischer

Published by: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, 656pp,

US$34.95.

In The Politics of Equality Leslie Lipson, when discussing the per-

ennial tension between the values of freedom and equality, made

the telling point that the trick was to keep them in some sort

of balance. Too much freedom could breed inequalities by the

ruthless and strong. Too much equality could result in crushing

uniformity as well as stifle freedom and innovation. Lipson also

contrasted the pre-eminence of American liberty, symbolised by

the Statue of Liberty guarding New York Harbor, against New

Zealand’s historic preference for equality: ‘if any sculptured alle-

gory were to be placed at the approaches of Auckland or Welling-

ton harbor, it would assuredly be a statue of equality.’1

With this backdrop or, more aptly, bedrock in mind, Da-

vid Hackett Fischer’s comparative study of two open societies,

America and New Zealand, is a valuable new contribution for

any who may seek to understand the central organising principles

that drive each liberal democracy. In the United States the dom-

inant cultural theme of liberalism vacillates around competing

conceptions of economic and democratic individualism.2 This is

self-evidently not so in New Zealand, where the lack of organising

principles has seen a more diffuse tension between liberty and

equality emerge, with equality the dominant value through most

of our history.

Fischer believes earlier critiques of New Zealand culture erro-

neously attribute the influence of ‘Mother Country’, geographi-

cal isolation, and the resulting insecurity as shaping the nation’s

cultural preference for egalitarianism. He rejects these by arguing

that differences between American and New Zealand values is

centred more on timing; essentially the difference between the

first and second British Empires and the pre- and post-enlight-

enment mental worlds that fore-

shadowed them. This explained

for Fischer the different attitudes

and treatment of respective set-

tler populations to developing

nascent political structures, their

interactions and policies towards

indigenous populations, their

patterns of settlement, and ap-

proaches to domestic and for-

eign policy challenges through

the centuries.

This claim is largely self-ev-

ident but Fischer does dismiss

rather glibly long-standing ex-

planations about the forging of a uniquely Kiwi culture. He re-

jects the impact of our physical isolation too easily for this re-

viewer’s taste. Size matters and so do resources (both physical and

human). Perhaps it depends upon which end of the telescope one

looks through, but the insightful Frenchman Andre Siegfried un-

derstood our ‘chronic smallness’ in a vein identical to New Zea-

land’s great historian J.C. Beaglehole, who described our islands

as a ‘geological exile,’ adding, ‘The springs of its more irritating

failings, as of its more characteristic virtues, rise, like its lakes and

torrents, in its own heart.’3

A curiously schizophrenic form of insularity is one result.

On one hand, New Zealanders travel in a fashion incomprehen-

sible to the average American. Located at the periphery of civ-

ilisation, New Zealanders seek it out in larger local, regional or

global centres. In America, an epicentre of civilisation of its own

making, people feel this need less. They are more content within

their physical surrounds, and are thus more unaware of differ-

ences. On the other hand, and despite our greater worldliness,

New Zealanders are suspicious of high rhetoric or grand visions,

purposes or challenges. A bold Declaration of Independence or

even a French-styled republic could find no fertile soil here —

indeed André Siegfried could not find one republican in the col-

ony during his stay — while America is at its most brilliant when

looking outward; to the west initially, then to other nations, and

ultimately to space once a continent’s riches, both physical and

human, had been mastered and put to the most expansive pur-

poses imaginable.

Fischer is at his eloquent best when describing the parallel

tracks of New Zealand and American development. His research

is voluminous and his enthusiasm evident as he brings an outsid-

er’s sense of discovery to his depictions of New Zealand’s historical

progression from colonial outpost to global citizen and beacon of

equalitarianism. There is little to fault in his descriptive analysis,

although his post-1984 interpretation of New Zealand is weaker

than earlier sections. Rogernomics introduced a new (neo-liberal)

language, to be sure, but it barely made an effort to piggyback

the old. Rather, an imported language was introduced by stealth

and was less about fairness than, according to its architects, the

absence of any alternative. Also, perhaps our Bill of Rights has

not attained the elevated status of that of our Americans cousins

because it has the same status as a rabbit control act, and we do

not remember the specifics of them either.

Fairness and Freedom does possess many annoying errors. As

notoriously reluctant as New Zealand’s political elites were to ac-

quire sovereignty over their law making, through the adoption of

New Zealand International Review28

the Statute of Westminster Act 1931, we did manage it a full dec-

ade earlier than Fischer claims. Second, the epiphany that struck

him on a Banks Peninsula road (the central rhetorical trope which

frames the book’s central theme from its introduction in his pref-

ace to its unveiling to begin his conclusion) will be lost on all of

those (mostly American) readers who fail to realise that the road

to Akaroa is the same as the road to ‘Alcaroa’. Thirdly, Fischer

felt that the prominence of fairness in American public life faded

after Truman’s consolidation of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Yet Lyndon

Johnson’s Great Society and the civil rights breakthroughs of the

1960s were a triumph for fairness, or perhaps its last hurrah, but

fairness nonetheless. Obamacare represents another late bloom-

ing, which is precisely why it was so despised by America’s right,

seeing as it grants at least 30 million of Fischer’s fellow citizens

equal protection from health-related financial ruin.

Obama’s re-election in 2012 highlights Lipson’s tension be-

tween liberty and fairness well. Republican challenger Mitt Rom-

ney’s contempt towards 47 per cent of his fellow citizens embodies

one aspect of it. Obama’s coalition of Blacks, Hispanics, women

and the young on both coasts represents another, with a majority

of voters from the rust-belt states helping to decide the election

in Obama’s favour on the back of his bailout of the auto indus-

try, part of a massive government response to the global financial

crisis. Romney’s promised freedoms lost out to Obama’s defence

of, and call for, greater fairness. In New Zealand, now into its

28th year of a post-Rogernomics cycle of politics, policy-mak-

ers are meanwhile awkwardly fine-tuning the consolidation of

greater freedoms into the nation’s cultural DNA. Reaction and

counter-reaction are a weak force as the now old language of the

neo-liberals has all but stalled, and with the direction we are head-

ed not easily glimpsed no compelling or strong new language has

emerged.

Perhaps then a more salient question for any comparative

study of the United States and New Zealand is less about the ori-

gins and manifestations of cultural values that forged each coun-

try’s identity, its politics and wider society, than how each nation,

however existential its journey has been, adapts to change and

the extent to which respective political systems can effect change

responses. Managing the tension between fairness and freedom

is one aspect of this but only one — the role of leadership, the

extent to which constitutional/institutional architectures create

system inertia or dynamism, and the quality of policy responses

are three of many other variables — so Fischer’s study is a valuable

if not definitive contribution to New Zealanders and Americans

learning how to learn from each other, from different ends of the

telescope.

JON JOHANSSON

NOTES1. Leslie Lipson, The Politics of Equality: New Zealand’s Adven-

tures in Democracy (2nd ed), Introduced by Jon Johansson

(Wellington, 2011), p.7.

2. See Erwin Hargrove, The President as Leader: Appealing to the Better Angels of Our Nature (Kansas, 1998), pp.52–7; and Ar-

thur M. Schlesinger Jr, The Cycles of American History (New

York, 1986), pp.1–48.

3. Andre Siegfried, Democracy in New Zealand (2nd ed), Intro-

duction by David Hamer (Wellington, 1982); J.C. Beagle-

hole, New Zealand: A Short History (London, 1936), p.158.

SANDSTORM: Libya in the Time of Revolution

Author: Lindsey Hilsum

Published by: Faber and Faber, London, 2012, 288pp, £17.99.

THE LAST REFUGE: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia

Author: Gregory Johnsen

Published by: Scribe, Melbourne, 2012, 352pp, A$32.99.

Two of the countries most im-

pacted by the Arab Spring upris-

ings, Libya and Yemen, are the

subject of recent volumes.

British journalist Lind-

sey Hilsum writes an excellent

volume on the overthrow of

Muammar Gaddafi. Hilsum

notes that to the outside world

Gaddafi was often seen as ‘a

clown’ or ‘an oddball’, but to the

Libyan people he was a terrifying

figure. Gaddafi’s 42-year reign

over Libya would end when the

leader was found in a ditch, and angry rebels beat, tortured and

executed him. Hilsum is able to outline the nature of Gaddafi’s

despotic rule and his support for revolutionary movements world-

wide, his (partial) alignment with the West during the last dec-

ade of his rule, and the popular uprising that ultimately deposed

him. Sandstorm offers some interesting insights into the deal that

Gaddafi struck with Western countries after 9/11. There has been

an interpretation that Gaddafi decided to give up his weapons

of mass destruction programme after the demonstration effect of

the war in Iraq. Hilsum offers more texture here. It is clear that

Gaddafi, to some extent less interested in exporting revolution in

his later years, was looking for a means to come in from the cold

anyway, and 9/11 offered him the opportunity to do so. In the

‘war on terrorism’, some may have considered the Libya regime

a useful ally. Hilsum, writing from the British angle, is quick to

point out some of the effusive statements that Tony Blair made

about Gaddafi, and how many, probably as the result of a West-

ernised façade, misjudged Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, who would

subsequently prove to share the despotic instincts of his father.

Despite Blair’s analysis, Libya was in fact a major source of jihad-

ists and suicide bombers in Iraq, many coming specifically from

the Cyrenaica region, which included the city of Benghazi. Beng-

hazi was notable for two social/political movements — religious

conservatism and hatred for the Gaddafi regime. Hilsum quotes

the late US Ambassador Chris Stevens (tragically killed in Beng-

hazi by extremists in 2012) as saying that elements radicalised by

the Gaddafi regime were willing to strike at the regime’s perceived

backer, that is, the United States. Once again it becomes obvi-

ous in hindsight that Middle Eastern dictatorships provided fer-

tile ground for al-Qaeda to recruit in, and this was notably so in

New Zealand International Review29

Libya. The NATO intervention

to prevent Gaddafi’s military

machine massacring its oppo-

nents changed that equation in

the eyes of many Libyans. Still,

some awkwardness remained. As

Hilsum notes, the Islamist leader

who led militia forces from Lib-

ya’s west to ‘liberate’ Tripoli and

finally topple the Gaddafi family

was one Abdel Hakim Belhaj,

who claimed to have once been

the subject of an ‘extraordinary

rendition’ by the United States

on the grounds that he might have been an al-Qaeda suspect.

Gregory Johnsen, formerly a journalist and currently at

Princeton University, writes an important account of al-Qaeda in

Yemen. The Last Refuge outlines the emergence of al-Qaeda in the

Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), or at least the most recent version of

it, from the remnants of former inmates of Guantanamo Bay and

Yemen’s own prison system. According to this account, AQAP

has become perhaps the most serious of the al-Qaeda spin-off

groups to threaten the outside world, as a number of attempted

external attacks in recent years would indicate. This has given rise

to drone strikes in response, some of which have targeted those

with US citizenship, most famously Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yeme-

ni-American cleric dubbed the ‘bin Laden of the internet’. In fact,

as Johnsen notes, jihadist groups have operated in Yemen for quite

some time, including the Yemen-based al-Qaeda cadre that made

the pre-9/11 attack on the USS Cole. The Last Refuge is able to

situate the emergence of AQAP within the wider political context

of Yemen’s politics and general turmoil. We also learn the role

that former long-term president (and former soldier) Abdullah

Ali Salih played in co-opting Islamist political forces and militias,

including to help him subdue southern Yemen in the 1990s, and

then subsequently maintaining some (including the ‘Afghan Ar-

abs’, that is, Yemeni veterans of the anti-Soviet war) on retainers.

Still, Yemen has always been a notoriously difficult country to

draw together, as demonstrated by events since early 2011, to in-

clude Salih’s departure after Arab Spring opposition in the streets

and the centrifugal tendencies of the provinces and regions. One

element of Johnsen’s account that needs to be remarked upon is

the sourcing of the material. Attempting to outline groups like

AQAP, or similar entities in other countries, poses considerable

research problems for scholars, which probably defy any kind of

access to documentary sources that would constitute the trade of

a careful historian. Yet much of Johnsen’s account, which, it must

be acknowledged, is a terrific (almost screen-play like) narrative,

is presented with a degree of certainty that the ascribed source

material cannot fully sustain. We are given words and actions at-

tributed to key figures, to include President Salih, without really

being able to pin down where this all comes from. Current AQAP

leader and former bin Laden bodyguard Nasir al-Wihayshi is said

by the author to have been judged by bin Laden himself as ‘too

short to be intimidating and too smart to be wasted’. One won-

ders about the basis of that judgment, which seems to rest on a

lot of assumptions. Johnsen also appears to have derived a lot of

material from newspaper accounts of interviews with extremists

and former extremists themselves, and seemingly accepted these

accounts at face value despite their likely self-serving nature. In

short, Johnsen’s book, while it contains material and judgements

that could use greater clarity, remains an important piece of the

puzzle in examining the extremism problem. One cannot think of

too many available publications that cover Yemen’s corner of the

al-Qaeda story in such a comprehensive way.

ANTHONY SMITH

GLOBAL ISLAMOPHOBIA: Muslims and Moral Panic in the West

Edited by: George Morgan and Scott Poynting

Published by: Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, 2012, 240pp, £55.

In March 2009, a 24-year-old Somali woman named Nadifa was

pulled out of her bed in the middle of the night, dragged to the

floor of her London apartment, handcuffed, and screamed at.

Nadifa’s description of her experience at the hands of police —

of shock, embarrassment and shame — is compelling. But it is

telling that her story does not appear in this book’s pages until the

penultimate of its twelve chapters. For the vast majority of Global

Islamophobia, the voices of individual Muslims in the West, and

how their lives have been affected by prejudice, are conspicuously

absent.

Global Islamophobia is a collection of eleven case studies from

around the Western world — North America, Western Europe

and Australia — which seek, in their sum, to demonstrate that

Islamophobia (irrational fear of Muslims or Islam) ‘permeates’ the

West, with ‘momentous’ consequences. The case studies are var-

ied and generally interesting and well-drawn — ranging from the

ability of the German state education system to deal with racially

heterogeneous student bodies in lower socio-economic commu-

nities to the use of crude anti-Muslim propaganda in a political

campaign in western Sydney.

The underlying analytical concept organising the case studies

is moral panic. Muslims in the West are described as being the

victims of a ‘volatile’, ‘hostile’ and ‘disproportionate’ moral panic,

and as being built into ‘folk devils’ who are blamed for many of

the underlying social and economic problems of the Western so-

cieties in which they live.

Evidence to support this thesis is sprinkled throughout the

book. Political movements, such as those described in this vol-

ume in Sweden and Italy, that present Islam as the primary source

of Western moral and social decay and as being fundamentally

inconsistent with ‘Western values’ exist throughout Europe. Tra-

ditional news media organisations, especially in the wake of psy-

chically challenging events such as terrorist attacks, can tend to

exaggerate, engage in demagoguery and simplify, including on

matters of religion and race. And some Western governments

have taken actions over the past decade that have been experi-

enced by Muslims as confronting, victimising and unfair.

But, as a work of media analysis or political sociology, Global

Islamophobia feels like a lengthy and repetitive exercise in stating

the obvious. It leaves many important questions either completely

New Zealand International Review30

or largely unanswered.

For example, the scale,

scope and effects of the Is-

lamophobia problem are not

convincingly addressed. How

widespread is anti-Muslim

prejudice in a range of West-

ern countries? Is it more severe

and/or more common than

that prejudice experienced by

other minorities now or in the

past? How does it impact on

the lives of Muslims living in

the West — whether in terms

of their ability to access qual-ity education, travel unimpeded, secure affordable and sanitary

housing and be given equal consideration in employment sit-

uations? Without this sort of sketch of the problem, it is hard

to discern whether the authors are arguing that Islamophobia is

an epochal crisis pervading every aspect of Western society and

threatening to fundamentally undermine its values (that is, that it

is analogous, say, to the civil rights crisis facing the United States

in the 1960s), or whether what they are describing is something

much more limited in its depth and effects.

The book, taken as a whole, also does little to address the

range of responses by Muslim communities to Islamophobia and

more generally to the process of living in majority non-Muslim

societies. What strategies have worked and what have not? In

terms of government policies, which approaches have generally

led to greater cohesion and social harmony; and which have in-

flamed tensions? It might be difficult to answer these questions in

a general way — because the situations in each Western country

are surely different. However, by providing an essentially ahistori-

cal and a-contextual account — one which concentrates more on

flashpoints and media controversies than on government policies

and structural factors — the author has made it difficult to discern

any lessons from the book’s accumulated evidence. More gener-

ally, the tension at the heart of liberal society — acceptance of

difference whilst observing universal norms — is left untouched.

One particularly surprising blind spot is the book’s almost

complete failure to come to grips with the role of new media tech-

nologies in the shaping of how Muslims are perceived, as well as in

how they construct their own senses of identity. For a study that

leans heavily on media content analysis, there is a strangely 20th

century feel to its methodology. In an age when a new generation

of followers of Islam is using a range of social media technologies

to create their own understandings of being Muslim in the West,

Global Islamophobia tends to concentrate instead on an analysis of

newspaper clippings.

For all that, this collection of essays addresses an important

issue that is worthy of further study and debate. More than a dec-

ade after 9/11, antipathy towards Muslims continues to bubble

up, including in the United States, where the experience of Mus-

lims — in terms of educational and economic outcomes — has

in aggregate been far better than that of their European co-reli-

gionists. Why such prejudice lingers, and what steps might be at-

tempted to combat it, are weighty matters. Unfortunately, Global Islamophobia does not convincingly address them.

MICHAEL APPLETON

ILLUMINATING THE DARK ARTS OF WAR: Terrorism, Sabotage and Subversion in Homeland Security

Author: David Tucker

Published by: Continuum Press, New York, 2013, 271pp,

US$32.95.

The first paragraph of Tucker’s book provokes interest. He asks

what should we think about a secretive religious minority living in

the United States that is radicalised and willing to use violence? In

the final sentence he points out that he was discussing Catholics

in the 19th century, prompting embarrassment in those, like me,

who leapt to the assumption that he was discussing radicalised

Islamic sects in contemporary times. The paragraph also, howev-

er, prompts some uncertainty about the book and the solidity of

some of these claims, as Tucker states that he will explore this case

further but fails to do so.

The rest of the book continues on in a similarly slightly discon-

certing but intriguing way. Tucker’s text is a discussion of different

aspects of violence: terrorism, sabotage and subversion. These are

for the most part nicely defined, and, again for the most part, he

seems to be putting forward a balanced view. For example, in dis-

cussing the possible threat of a weapons of mass destruction attack

on the United States by a terrorist group, he downplays the hype.

He notes that such groups would need to: be willing to attack the

United States in an indiscriminate way; be willing to use weapons

of mass destruction; and be able to do so. This is an important

recognition of the difficulties such groups would meet, given the

scaremongering that exists around this particular topic. He also

suggests that evangelical Christianity might be just as much of a

threat to the United States as radical Islam given how he defines

threats to secular statehood — a controversial if interesting claim.

However, at times the balance of the view being brought across

frays a little. For example Tucker relays a Cold War argument that

‘Nazism and Communism were in principle the same. Nazism

denied equality on the basis of race; Marxism on the basis of class’.

This is not referenced, and a follow up sentence two pages later

sees Tucker himself assert that there was a real threat of subversion

from communists within the United States. The weakness here is

that there is no real outlining as to why communism was subver-

sive, no tackling of issues such as capitalism and different forms of

democratic process. Given the helpful definitions provided else-

where — for example, he does outline why radical Islamism is

seen as subversive as it requires a doing away of the separation of

politics and religion — this is an important oversight. This case

also highlights another weakness of the book — additional ref-

erencing would provide weight of evidence for the claims made.

Some literature also seems lacking. For example, Tucker discusses

the idea of the ‘new terrorism’ but does not mention Walter La-

queur, nor is Laqueur in the bibliography — and Laqueur wrote

The New Terrorism.

These issues aside, this is still a very interesting book, not

in the least because it demonstrates that political violence has

long been a feature of American life. The first substantive chap-

ter sketches a history of lynching, civil war, riots, mob violence,

New Zealand International Review31

and home-grown terrorism by Black Liberation Army, Puerto

Rican separatists, Klu Klux Klan members, the Unabomber and

the Weathermen amongst others. (Tucker also helpfully points

out that domestic political violence, particularly terrorism, has

been on the wane since the 1970s, though international attacks

have increased.) In providing this survey of political violence, the

book also describes something about the American political psy-

che. For example, Tucker discusses the role of the Declaration of

Independence in trying to understand just what terrorism and

subversion might be when the declaration both emphasises rights

and justifies the use of might. He sketches debates over ‘clear

and present danger’ in outlining the controversial McCarran Act,

which strongly discriminated against members of the Commu-

nist Party during the Cold War. Most striking about this book,

then, is the way in which it manages to directly or inadvertently

highlight the strong tensions within the US political system and

the various interpretations of rights, freedoms and understand-

ings as to how to avoid a tyranny of the majority when consent

is all important.

In terms of other themes, Tucker also spends a fair amount of

time discussing the implications of technology (Chapter 3) and

organisational forms (Chapter 6) in considering the key question

of state versus non-state actor power. He argues that technology

has not really made much of a difference. It gives non-state actors

new ways of organising but also lends state actors new ways of

responding. And some things remain the same — for example,

Tucker points out that building trust still requires face-to-face

interaction. In considering institutional forms, he suggests that

there are also pros but cons to the more horizontal, decentralised

and autonomous nature of non-state actor networks. He does not

ascribe to the notion that states need to ‘be a network to fight a

network’, and argues that states still have supremacy over non-

state actors, particularly in terms of accountability and legitimacy.

In making this claim Tucker is willing to admit that US authorities

are fallible. For example, he notes how federal counter-terrorism

capabilities came late to the fray in the 1970s, and suggests that

‘not having been designed for such a role the federal government

did not handle its growing power and authority gracefully’. Over-

all, this is an intriguing book. It touches on significant themes,

such as the power of states in an information age, and provides

interesting details, such as Tucker’s description of the effects of

Stuxnet (a programme that was designed to sabotage Iran’s nu-

clear programme). Worth a read, but some points made could be

more convincing.

BETH GREENER

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New Zealand International Review32

Sir,

A variety of recent publications provide valuable complements to

the continuing debate on New Zealand’s international position,

particularly in regard to China, and how we are to maximise our

interests in the future. These publications include the NZIR in its

last two issues and the two 2012 CSS discussion papers 11 and

12.1 While most of the discussion understandably focuses on bi-

lateral relations in a regional context, we suggest that such an anal-

ysis needs to be broadened to include a greater global perspective,

as well as a more rigorous assessment of the role of multilateralism

and the United Nations in particular.

A global perspective is necessary to properly recognise China’s

interests as it increases in economic reach and becomes a glob-

al power. While regional relations with its neighbours, and the

United States in particular, are vitally important, China’s demand

for resources is prompting it to strengthen ties with countries out-

side the Asia–Pacific region, such as in Africa and Latin America.

These relations will be an important influence on the way that

China develops its international perspectives and strategies.

A much more vital global perspective, however, is an appre-

ciation of overall collective, global benefit. To what extent do na-

tions, and big powers in particular, see the rest of the world as

resources to be competitively exploited, or as common assets to

be collectively nurtured based on agreed rules and principles? Are

nations principally interested in asserting narrow self interest in

whatever way they can, or in developing systems to enable col-

lective promotion of mutual interest? In short, what is the role of

multilateralism, and the United Nations in particular?

New Zealand has always recognised the critical importance of

global multilateralism and the rule of law, particularly for small-

er nations. It contributed significantly to the formation of the

League of Nations and the United Nations. However, the viability

of such systems depends vitally on the involvement of the major

powers, an issue which has been amply demonstrated by subse-

quent events in both the League and the United Nations.

A vital objective of New Zealand diplomacy would, therefore,

include promoting big power commitment to multilateralism.

In their CSS paper Chris Elder and Rob Ayson demonstrated

the significant impact that China has been having in our multilat-

eral institutions, becoming, in some ways, a de facto leader of the

developing world. China is playing a prominent role in the G77

and challenging Western liberal dominance of the major econom-

ic institutions. The Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides a vital

basis in which many nations can address potential disputes and

its recognition is particularly relevant to the oceans around China.

The key question is, to what extent will China seek collec-

tive security by strengthening the United Nations and working

through its provisions, or alternatively by manipulation of the

international machinery in its own interests and the coercion of

individual countries? A critical case is presented by its maritime

borders. While it has ratified the UNCLOS, it insists on address-

ing its various disputes on a bilateral basis. This ‘divide and con-

quer’ tactic thus undermines the legitimacy of the UNCLOS and

has placed enormous strains on ASEAN.

China’s behaviour, of course, must be seen in the context of

the attitude of other powers towards multilateralism and the ex-

CORRESPONDENCEtent that disrespect for the rule of law has been tolerated by other

countries such as ourselves.

In pursuing New Zealand’s interests with respect to a rising

China we must undertake substantial analysis of the roles that

the various forms of multilateralism have played, the factors that

have strengthened and weakened their influence, and the record

of China’s engagement. Above all, we need to promote China’s

appreciation of how its long-term interests can be pursued more

effectively through a co-operative multilateral framework. Such a

strategy will involve not only our direct relations with China but

also our relations with many of the other countries that have re-

lations with China and see the value in a co-operative rules-based

environment, rather than a competitive power-based one.

Tim Groser’s paper ‘Governance and multilateralism in the

21st century’ (NZIR, vol 38, no 1) does provide a global and an

historical perspective of the benefits of multilateralism, as well as

some interesting insights into the nature of multilateral negoti-

ations. However, he fails to do justice to the breadth and depth

of multilateral governance systems by making only the briefest

mention of the extensive UN system, and virtually ignoring the

complex of other regional and specialist institutions.

John Allen, secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and

Trade, in his presentation in Wellington to mark UN Day last

24 October,2 highlighted the crucial importance of the principles

of the United Nations and the great need for a much greater ap-

preciation of its role. He also emphasised the considerable contri-

bution that small states can make in promoting those principles

and establishing the framework for the rule of law, in contrast to

the rule of war. Further, he argued that New Zealand can make

a distinctive contribution due to the special role that respect and

partnership plays within it.

While the articles that we have seen to date make important

contributions to our understanding of our interests, we look for-

ward to a broader analysis that does justice to New Zealand’s long-

term interests in a co-operative multilateral, rules-based interna-

tional order. Is there a risk that a relationship too narrowly focused

on bilateral dimensions undermines these broader interests?

We hope that New Zealand will re-discover the inspiration

and vision that led it into the creation of the United Nations, and

motivated its extensive contributions to the development of that

system.

GRAY SOUTHON

Special Officer for UN Renewal

United Nations Association of New Zealand

NOTES1. Chris Elder and Robert Ayson, China’s Rise and New Zea-

land’s Interests: A Policy Primer for 2030, Discussion Paper

No 11 (Wellington, 2012); Zhu Feng, U.S. Rebalancing in the

Asia–Pacific: China’s Response and the Future Regional Order, Discussion Paper No 12 (Wellington, 2012).

2. www.unanz.org.nz/Home/tabid/288/EntryId/41/MFAT-

Secretary-John-Allens-address-at-UNANZ-UN-Day-Recep-

tion-at-Premier-House.aspx.

New Zealand International Review33

INSTITUTE NOTES

From 29 October till 16 November an NZIIA team consisting

of Peter Kennedy, Lance Beath and Peter Nichols carried out the

second session of the Papua New Guinea Foreign Service Train-

ing programme in Port Moresby. Foreign Minister Hon Murray

McCully, visiting Papua New Guinea with a business delegation,

gave an address on ‘The Requirements of a Foreign Service Of-

ficer’ to course members on the second day. (A report on this

effort is to be found elsewhere in this issue.)

The book New Flags Flying, by Michael Powles and Ian John-

stone, was launched at a reception in Wellington on 27 Novem-

ber, with 75 present.

A delegation from the NZIIA led by Sir Douglas Kidd took

part in the China–New Zealand Symposium held in Beijing on

4 December.

NelsonOn 4 December Peter Kennedy, the director of the Institute and

former ambassador to the European Union, gave an address enti-

tled ‘Europe: Who’s in Charge’.

Palmerston NorthOn 31 October, Ian McKelvie MP addressed the branch about

the role of New Zealand in promoting sustainable agriculture for

international food security. As a local businessman and politician

with a long farming background, he demonstrated his awareness

and appreciation of the implications and challenges for New Zea-

land’s ability to compete effectively in a globalised world. Hin-

dered by a small domestic market, an inability to reach critical

mass without going overseas, and a lack of sufficient infrastructure

to ‘grow’ industry efficiently, while sufficient talent and expertise

is right here in New Zealand, many of our success stories have

meant taking a more pro-active approach.

McKelvie’s key argument was the need to increase the under-

standing of the importance of agriculture for New Zealand as its

primary industry. He believed that New Zealand’s future is in

high quality food production. This is necessary throughout socie-

ty as a whole. For many, this would involve a change in mindsets

in making agriculture and sustainable living more attractive as a

career or lifestyle. McKelvie lamented the lack of rural infrastruc-

ture and relatively higher costs of this choice as a barrier, and dis-

cussed possible solutions by commenting about his own personal

role in pushing these topics in government circles, and raising the

level of emphasis on rural concern, which in his opinion are not

given sufficient attention or priority.

The second point was making better use of technologies and

efficiencies to remain competitive — perhaps with more research

and development for value-added processes in building up New

Zealand’s role as a leading producer and exporter of high quality

food products. Some goals were to promote a coherent agri-food

strategy or precision agricultural techniques. To enhance this as-

pect of the knowledge economy, the role of education is vital.

There has to be a change in thinking amongst industry and soci-

ety so that sustainable agriculture is accepted and embraced as an

attractive option for students.

Tauranga On 25 October Sir Douglas Kidd formally opened a new

NZIIA branch at Tauranga. The ceremony was attended by a di-

verse group of business people and teachers from the local com-

munity. Director Peter Kennedy also participated.  The driving

force behind the new branch is Murray Denyer, a former MFAT

officer and general counsel for Zespri, who is now a partner in

ConneyLeesMorgan. He was elected chair. As a major commer-

cial hub and port it is expected that Tauranga will provide a vi-

brant environment within which the new branch will grow.

WairarapaOn 19 November Rob Robinson CNZM, former commissioner

of police, addressed the branch on ‘International Police Plan to

Combat One of the World’s Biggest Killers’. He is leading a pro-

ject to establish the new International Road Policing Organisation

(RoadPOL) in Singapore. The Singapore government is hosting

the World Bank-initiated venture, which aims to improve road

safety enforcement in low and middle-income countries.

In January the NZIIA’s

national office gained

a new executive officer,

replacing Ngaire Flynn,

who has retired.  She is

Synonne Rajanayagam,

who comes to us high-

ly recommended after

fourteen years as execu-

tive officer at the Cen-

tre for Strategic Studies,

Victoria University. Syn-

onne, who has diplomas

in journalism and child

psychology and develop-

ment, worked previously

NZIIA President Sir Douglas Kidd with Murray Denyer, the chair of the new Tauranga branch

for the New Zealand office of UNICEF. Prior to this she

was employed in the International Recruitment Office of

King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Riyadh.  Synonne may be

contacted on Synonne.rajanayagam@vuw.ac.nz or 04 463

5356.

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