This could be a watershed week for New Zealand’s international relations. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, is heading to Washington, D.C., for a full week of meetings. The surprisingly lengthy trip just happens to coincide with a major trilateral summit of leaders from the United States, Japan, and the Philippines. And a media report over … Read more
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington is his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy coincidence that the visit is taking … Read more
Early reactions to the ANZMIN 2+2 meeting of Australia and New Zealand’s foreign and defense ministers suggest that New Zealand’s recently elected coalition government is breaking with the country’s traditional foreign policy independence. On February 1, New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defense Minister Judith Collins met with Australia’s Deputy … Read more
New Zealand’s new right-wing government is making dramatic changes to foreign policy. Prime Minister Chris Luxon of the National Party has privileged the priorities of his two coalition partners: New Zealand First and ACT. A core agenda of this coalition government will be to dismantle and undermine progress on Māori rights domestically, and Indigenous rights … Read more
New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda. As expected, this includes a more pro-U.S. positioning when it comes to the Pacific. Peters sought to align New Zealand more closely with the United States under his “Pacific Reset” policy that he launched … Read more
Advertisement As the United States and Australia deepen ties with various Asian and Southeast Asian states, the issue of whether New Zealand or Canada should join the nascent AUKUS security arrangement becomes more pressing. Both states already share deep security relationships with Australia and the United States. These include the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement (which, … Read more