South China Morning Post
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has warned that the country's recent increase in defense diplomacy and potential involvement in the Aukus pact could threaten its tradition of an independent foreign policy. She argues that prioritizing military alliances risks undermining the Pacific's status as a zone of peace.
Why it matters
This highlights the growing geopolitical tension in the Pacific as nations navigate the rivalry between US-led security blocs and regional autonomy.
Helen Clark spent nine years running New Zealand and eight more running the United Nations’ development arm.
Now, the former prime minister has a warning for the country she once led: do not let the scramble for Pacific security deals crowd out its much-vaunted independent foreign policy tradition.
Speaking to This Week in Asia in Singapore on Tuesday, Clark argued that Wellington’s recent flurry of defence diplomacy – including a defence cooperation pact with Papua New Guinea, a joint security declaration with the Cook Islands and talk of joining a fledgling Australia-Fiji alliance – risked the Pacific’s future as “a zone of peace”.
For decades, New Zealand’s foreign policy has rested on two pillars: independence from superpower blocs and a Pacific kept free of nuclear weapons. Both are now being tested.
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