Since 2018, consecutive New Zealand governments have given higher priority to the Pacific region in their foreign policy. This has been driven, at least in part, by concerns about growing geostrategic competition in the region, spurred by initiatives by the People’s Republic of China to establish closer ties with Pacific countries. Over the same period, several other countries have increased their own diplomatic, development and military presences in the Pacific, often in the context of broader ‘IndoPacific’ framings. Nevertheless, these rapidly expanding engagements are largely failing to translate into enhanced social, economic or environmental benefits for the region. To the contrary, the dominant focus on geopolitics and security in these engagements runs the risk of sidelining — or even conflicting with — issues viewed as more important by Pacific countries, including development and especially climate change, which Pacific countries have identified as their most significant existential threat. The dynamics of New Zealand’s relations with the Pacific are thus more complex, and demand more careful navigation, than ever before.

Complex region

The actors, interests and rate of interactions shaping international politics in the Pacific have changed significantly over the past decade. Already in 2018, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders recognised that they operated within ‘a dynamic geopolitical environment leading to an increasingly crowded and complex region’.1 In addition to Pacific countries and territories that are members of the PIF,² a variety of more or less ‘external’ actors engaged in the region can be distinguished, including: l two metropolitan PIF members, New Zealand and Australia, which see themselves as integral to the region; l a set of more powerful states on the Pacific Rim and beyond, including ‘traditional partners’ such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Japan, as well as ‘non-traditional partners’ like China, Taiwan and Russia; and l a significant number of other ‘new’ actors that are becoming increasingly active in the region, including Indonesia, India, South Korea, Israel, Germany and Norway. These ‘external’ actors have varied histories of engagement in the Pacific. These include periods of more or less violent colonisation, imperial rivalry, economic exploitation, nuclear testing and war, as well as more recent episodes of rising geopolitical tension and ideological contestation during the Cold War and the Global War on Terrorism.³ Notably, several Western powers, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, continue to hold colonial territories in the Pacific, which they invoke to justify their continued involvement in the region. It is worth recalling that New Zealand also has its own dark chapters of colonialism in the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Samoa and Nauru.

All this suggests that a more fluid set of dynamics is at play, beyond what a simple internal/external model can capture. Some of the ‘external’ powers mentioned above have themselves claimed to be ‘Pacific nations’ at various times, including the United States and Indonesia. New Caledonia and French Polynesia were admitted to full membership of the PIF in 2016, and PIF leaders have recently approved the admission of Guam and American Samoa as associate members of the PIF, arguably granting both France and the United States toeholds in that organisation. Moreover, Taiwan’s influence among Pacific countries has waned as China’s influence has expanded, and the United Kingdom has become markedly more engaged in the region in recent years.

Non-state actors also contribute significantly to the dynamics of geostrategic competition in the Pacific. In addition to the core United Nations agencies,4 other international organisations have become increasingly active, including multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the European Union and a range of climatefocused entities.⁵ Multinational corporations have the potential to play crucial roles in regional economic development plans, such as Google’s multi-billion dollar ‘Pacific Connect Initiative’, which includes plans to lay sub-sea cables between several Pacific countries. Philanthropic entities, such as the Bezos Earth Fund and the Waitt Foundation, have also become significant players. These and other non-state actors interact with Pacific countries and ‘external’ state actors in a variety of ways that influence their political relationships.

Security arrangements

These fluid and complex dynamics are particularly evident in the evolution of security and defence arrangements in the Pacific. Responding to the perceived threat of China’s growing influence, ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategies have proliferated over the past decade, from Japan to France, Germany, the Netherlands, the European Union and the United States. Several states have produced development and security policies specifically targeted to the Pacific, such as Australia’s ‘Pacific Step-Up’, the United States’ ‘Pacific Pledge’, the United Kingdom’s ‘Pacific Uplift’, Indonesia’s ‘Pacific Elevation’ and India’s ‘Act East’.

Moreover, Pacific countries have entered into more than 60 security agreements with external actors. The vast majority of these are with so-called ‘traditional’ partners such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States.6 Under the AUKUS trilateral security partnership, the United Kingdom and the United States are assisting Australia to purchase nuclear-powered submarines to support their shared strategic goals in the IndoPacific region, raising concerns in many Pacific countries. Nevertheless, the security arrangements sought by ‘non-traditional’ partners — in particular, China’s security deal with Solomon Islands and its proposed region-wide agreement with Pacific countries — have attracted much more media attention and concern in Western-aligned states.

Particular forms of security engagement have become more salient in recent years. Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief are sites of significant competition and politicisation, particularly since the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga in January 2022, which drew responses from defence personnel from other Pacific countries, as well as ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ partners. Moreover, transnational crime is a subject of widespread concern, with clear links between Pacific countries and lucrative drug markets in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In 2022, China floated the possibility of establishing a police training centre in Solomon Islands. In the same year, the Australian Federal Police began developing a Pacific Policing Initiative, including a large training facility for Pacific countries’ police officers in Queensland and new arrangements to support the growth of the Solomon Islands police force.

Maritime security is another important area where geostrategic competition is growing. Since 2016, the Australian government has deployed twenty Guardian-class patrol boats to Pacific countries to assist with border security, search and rescue and policing tasks. China recently added 26 coast guard vessels to the register of authorised inspection vessels to operate in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission convention area. At the same time, the European Union’s Indo-Pacific Strategy aims to extend a maritime capacity-building project to the southern Pacific to combat maritime drug trafficking, human trafficking, wildlife crime and illicit financial flows linked to terrorism.⁷

Development assistance

Flows of aid and development assistance have long been used as instruments of geopolitical competition. According to the Lowy Institute, the number of donors in the region has more than doubled between 2008 and 2021, from 31 to 81.⁸ Australia stands out as the largest donor by far, with the Asian Development Bank in second place. In contrast, China’s share of official development finance is relatively small and significantly below its peak in 2016. However, this does not necessarily entail a loss of influence in the region, as China has increasingly targeted its aid to specific countries, expanded the proportion of grants it offers and started to work more with and through multilateral development banks.

It is equally important to note the purposes towards which aid is being directed in the region. The past half-decade has seen record-high spending on infrastructure, boosted by the launch of the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the

Pacific in 2019, while spending on education and health has declined in relative terms. Whereas much of the concern about Chinese investment has related to ‘dual use’ infrastructure, such as the construction of strategically situated ports and airfields which could be used for both civilian and military purposes, China has recently redirected its focus from large-scale infrastructure projects to ‘small and beautiful’ projects with a green component.⁹

Indeed, the proportion of aid directed towards climate adaptation and mitigation has grown steadily, led by Australia and Japan. Other significant players include the European Union and climate-specific multilateral organisations, such as the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund. However, the overall amount of climate finance provided to the Pacific remains much lower than needed and appears to include projects which are not fundamentally concerned with climate change mitigation or adaptation, even if marked as having a ‘significant’ climate component.10

Pacific perspectives

At a collective level, Pacific countries have expressed clearly what kinds of engagement they seek from external actors. The PIF’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent sets out the vision of Pacific leaders for the next quarter-century, centred on ‘a resilient Pacific Region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, that ensures all Pacific peoples can lead free, healthy and productive lives’.11 The seven key thematic areas outlined in the strategy — political leadership and regionalism, people-centred development, peace and security, resources and economic development, climate change and disasters, ocean and natural environment, and technology and connectivity — define the region’s collective priorities in its own words. Central to this vision is an ‘expanded concept of security’ that includes human security, humanitarian assistance, environmental security and resilience to climate change and other disasters.12 Consistent with a long-held vision of a peaceful and non-aligned Pacific region, PIF leaders have adopted a posture of ‘friends to all, enemies to none’ and have expressed dismay at how growing geostrategic competition in the region has tended to narrow their strategic choices and horizons.13

Connected to the 2050 Strategy, PIF leaders have promulgated a set of ‘Blue Pacific Principles for Dialogue and Engagement’.14 Intended to emphasise the importance of ‘genuine partnerships that reflect the collective priorities of the region’, these principles require: engaging with the full PIF membership; progressing PIF priorities; following a ‘partnership approach’ in planning, programming and delivery; utilising existing regional and international mechanisms; and developing joint outcome statements and processes for implementation. PIF leaders have expressed concern that geostrategic competition among Forum Dialogue Partners — which include the United States, the United Kingdom, China and the European Union — may distract from regional priorities and even lead to military conflict. To help address this, PIF leaders are considering introducing a tiered approach to working with Dialogue Partners, similar to that used by ASEAN, in the context of an overall review of the regional architecture.

These expressions of collective vision and intent have achieved some success in shaping the rhetoric, if not the behaviour, of external actors. The language of the ‘Blue Pacific’ has been adopted in policy statements from New Zealand and Australia, as might be expected from PIF members. Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared that his government supports

‘Pacific island countries… in implementing the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, contributing to the building of a peaceful, harmonious, secure, inclusive and prosperous Blue Pacific’.15 Likewise, the Biden administration’s Pacific Partnership Strategy makes multiple references to the 2050 Strategy and commits the United States ‘to address Pacific priorities working together with the Pacific’ in accordance with ‘principles of Pacific regionalism, transparency and accountability’.16 In June 2022, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States collectively launched an informal initiative, the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP), with the avowed aim of ‘further elevat[ing] Pacific regionalism, with a strong and united Pacific Islands Forum at its centre, as a vital pillar of the regional architecture and of our respective approaches in the region’.17

There are grounds to wonder whether these pronouncements amount to much more than lip service, if not the ‘bluewashing’ of geostrategic ambitions. It is doubtful whether the 2050 Strategy has had any real influence on Chinese activities in the region. Moreover, the US government’s Pacific Partnership Strategy is explicitly aligned to its Indo-Pacific strategy, which makes no mention of ‘Blue Pacific’ priorities; Australia’s latest International Development Policy is also largely focused on the Indo-Pacific region, with little explicit connection to the 2050 Strategy; and New Zealand’s latest national security strategy (National Security Strategy 2023–2028) makes only one reference to the 2050 Strategy, as compared with twelve references to ‘Indo-Pacific’. Pacific leaders frequently view IndoPacific strategies as inconsistent with their priorities and values, especially when linked in practice with military initiatives such as AUKUS.18 The announcement of the PBP, without prior consultation and agreement with PIF leaders, has similarly been criticised for co-opting the ‘Blue Pacific’ narrative while disregarding the PIF’s ‘Blue Pacific Principles’ for engagement.19 It is inevitable that existing relationships between particular Pacific countries and ‘external’ actors will shape alliances for some time to come. As territories of France, New Caledonia and French Polynesia serve as crucial bases for France’s naval forces. Three Micronesian states are parties to a Compact of Free Association that enables the United States to operate armed forces on their territories in return for funding grants and social services. Papua New Guinea receives significant development aid, as well as security support, from Australia. Such alliances may be inevitable in such a diverse region,and are not necessarily inimical to collective identity and action. However, they do have the potential to create gaps and inequalities, making the high-minded goal of ‘friends to all’ difficult to achieve in practice.

Regional dilemmas

Proclamations of collective solidarity by PIF leaders sit uneasily with differences that have emerged among Pacific countries in recent years. The crisis that emerged in 2021, when five Micronesian states threatened to withdraw from the PIF, now appears to have subsided. However, China’s growing presence in Kiribati and Solomon Islands, including through the provision of security services, has clearly unsettled relationships in the region. In one recent incident, language referring to Taiwan as a development partner was removed from a PIF leaders’ communiqué at China’s insistence.20 Fully alert to the global geopolitical context, Pacific countries are conscious of China’s strategic ambition to displace the United States as ‘a regional and global hegemon’.21 Many might prefer dealing with ‘traditional partners’ such as Australia and New Zealand but see engagement with China as a pragmatic necessity. Others view China more posi- tively, as offering access to more markets, finance and technology without the politically motivated development models they see as being imposed by Western states.

Pacific countries are faced with a number of other dilemmas regarding the kinds of engagement they wish to see in the region. Choices must be made whether to continue to focus on building infrastructure or to spend more on ‘human development’, such as health and education programmes. Investments in infrastructure, including those with significant climate components such as hydropower projects, are often financed by multilateral development banks, adding to the risk of debt distress and raising doubts about whether the current ‘building spree’ is sustainable. Labour migration has long provided a significant source of income for Pacific countries, with remittances far outweighing foreign direct investment in many countries. However, the more recent formalisation of seasonal labour schemes and the creation of new pathways to residence in Australia and New Zealand have led to dramatic and devastating shortages of skilled labour in Pacific countries.22

Finally, an emerging issue that threatens to divide the region is the possibility of deep sea mining. Some Pacific leaders have seen this as an opportunity to raise the money needed to build climate resilience; others have called for a moratorium or outright ban.23 Positioned at the intersection of two priorities in the 2050 Strategy — the drive for economic development and the desire to protect the Pacific Ocean and environment — deepsea mining is often framed as providing critical minerals for the transition to ‘green’ energy, with the potential to attract geopolitical competition over securing minerals for military purposes.

Greatest strengths

In navigating these conflicting currents, Aotearoa New Zealand’s greatest strengths lie in the close associations and trust it has already established with Pacific countries, both intergovernmentally and personally. As an island state in the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand benefits from close genealogical and historical links between tangata whenua and tangata Pasifika. New Zealand diplomats and military personnel have accrued considerable goodwill in Pacific countries, having made positive contributions to resolving conflicts in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stance also aligns well with Pacific countries’ aspirations for a peaceful and nuclear-free Pacific.

These connections have formed the basis of recent shifts in New Zealand’s foreign policy towards the Pacific.24 Successive New Zealand governments have upheld and promoted Pacific regional institutions, committed to the 2050 Strategy and sought to channel security concerns through the PIF and related mechanisms. The Pacific Reset in 2018 emphasised New Zealand’s Pacific identity, significantly boosted the government’s Pacific budget and saw a corresponding expansion of diplomatic and development activities in the region. The ‘Pacific Resilience’ framework, adopted in late 2021, went further in advocating an approach grounded in the Treaty of Waitangi and a Māori world view, including the principles of ‘Tātai Hono’ (The recognition of deep and enduring whakapapa connections) and ‘Tātou Tātou’ (All of us together).25 These strategies all align well with the expressed interests of Pacific countries and have the potential to enhance New Zealand’s reputation and mana in the region.

Yet there remains a risk that New Zealand believes it is doing better than it actually is. New Zealand diplomats and government officials can be susceptible to misreading the messag- es they receive from Pacific countries. Such misunderstandings may be more likely to arise if Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials view the Pacific as a less attractive place to be posted than other regions; if MFAT sends its junior diplomats to ‘cut their teeth’ in Pacific postings; or is distrustful of sending Pasifika diplomats to Pacific postings. More fundamentally, deep-seated paternalistic attitudes towards Pacific countries pose a continuing challenge to the success of New Zealand’s engagements in the region.

Climate change is one area of potential weakness, where a mismatch is perceived to exist between New Zealand’s rhetoric and its actions. From the perspective of Pacific countries, New Zealand is often seen as siding with major powers on climate issues, for instance negotiating in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process as part of the Umbrella Group (together with the United States, Australia, Japan and others) and adopting positions that are not aligned with the Group of 77, the Least-Developed Country Group or the Alliance of Small Island States, to which Pacific countries belong. To the extent that the Coalition government is perceived as less environmentally friendly than its predecessors, this will risk further damage to New Zealand’s reputation among Pacific countries.

Another topic of sensitivity concerns relations between Pacific countries and China. New Zealand’s National Security Strategy 2023–2028 characterises China’s development cooperation as ‘a key lever to achieve its long-term ambitions in the Pacific’ and refers to China’s involvement in developing ports and airports as raising the possibility that they ‘become dual-use facilities (serving both civilian and military purposes) or fully fledged military bases in the future, which would fundamentally alter the strategic balance in the region’.26 Whatever the truth of such analysis, these statements minimise the legitimate interests and agency of Pacific countries in seeking to upgrade crucial aspects of their development infrastructure.

Recasting relations

As argued above, geostrategic competition has destabilised relationships in the Pacific region while distracting from the Pacific countries’ own plans and priorities. However, this moment can provide opportunities for New Zealand to choose a different path that builds on New Zealand’s existing strengths when engaging with Pacific nations. Humility will be required to enable recognition that gaining a deeper understanding of the Pacific requires developing further intellectual, expert and cultural capacities at home. In this connection, existing social networks and traditional knowledge in the tangata Pasifika diaspora offer vital keys that can be leveraged to build stronger relationships with Pacific countries.

Recasting relations within the Pacific region means recognising that not all countries in the region have the same needs and interests. This also requires acknowledging that New Zealand has its own national interests, which will not always coincide with those of Pacific countries. A more honest and open conversation about New Zealand’s difficulties in managing its relationships with other external actors — including Australia, the United States and China — will go a long way towards establishing greater trust with Pacific countries in the long term.

New Zealand should continue making positive contributions to regional security, as defined by Pacific countries in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and other key documents. Crucially, these contributions need to be balanced across the different types of security, with a particular focus on climate and health, in addition to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, transnational crime, maritime security operations and more traditional areas of defence and policing.

New Zealand could play an important role in fostering collaboration between academic institutions and other civil society organisations in New Zealand and the wider region. It could, for example, develop shared academic and research programmes with educational institutions such as the University of the South Pacific; propose the addition of Track II platforms to existing regional mechanisms, such as the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting; create partnerships to train defence, security and diplomatic personnel in Pacific countries; and develop a cadre of tangata Pasifika experts in New Zealand whom Pacific countries can call upon to advise on security issues, broadly understood. A longer-term goal would be to work towards a regular, multi-track dialogue that includes diplomats, academics, security experts, think tanks and business leaders from a range of Pacific countries and external actors.

Review support

New Zealand should continue to support the review of the PIF’s mechanisms for engaging with external actors while carefully calibrating its own attitudes to such actors. For example, instead of confronting any and all Chinese influence in the region, New Zealand could acknowledge that Pacific countries have reasonable interests in entering into arrangements with China to address development and security concerns. Doing so would not mean ignoring the potentially disruptive effects of heightened geopolitical competition in the region, nor would it entail any weakening of commitment to the ‘Blue Pacific Principles’ for engagement. Rather, it would mean greater selectivity when deciding when to oppose, when to disagree and when to cooperate with China. Adopting such an approach might serve to persuade Pacific countries that New Zealand places a high priority on aligning with their national interests and is not driven by a knee-jerk assumption that China’s motives are malign.

Finally, New Zealand should seek opportunities to proactively engage with issues of strategic salience to Pacific countries. This might involve offering or encouraging mediation between the French government and the Kanaky independence movement in New Caledonia, even if this might be unpopular with ‘traditional’ partners in the Pacific. More prosaically, it could include taking steps to review trade and labour agreements for the benefit of Pacific countries. Other possibilities include tangible demonstrations of support for ‘homegrown’ Pacific initiatives, such as the requests for advisory opinions on climate change issues from international judicial bodies and the effort to fix baselines under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In short, by centring the region’s own priorities — particularly climate, development and a broad conception of security — New Zealand will foster deeper trust with its Pacific neighbours and navigate the conflicting currents of Pacific geopolitics more effectively.

Guy Fiti Sinclair is an associate professor and the associate dean (Pacific) at the Auckland Law School, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau. This article is based on a longer report published by the NZIIA, which synthesises key insights from a group of fifteen experts on international politics in the Pacific region, convened at the NZIIA Pacific Symposium in Auckland in late June 2024.

Notes

1. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Action Plan to Implement the Boe Declaration on Regional Security (16 Aug 2019), p.6 (forumsec. org/sites/default/files/2024-03/BOE-document-Action-Plan.pdf).

Thanks to Kara Irwin for research assistance.

2. These are: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

3. See generally Greg Fry, Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism (Canberra, 2019), ch 9, 11.

4. See generally Graham Hassall, The United Nations and the Pacific Islands (Springer, 2023).

5. Alexandre Dayant et al, 2023 Key Findings Report, Lowy Institute, 31 Oct 2023, p.10 (pacificaidmap.lowyinstitute.org/Lowy-InstitutePacific-Aid-Map-Key-Findings-Report-2023.pdf).

6. Prianka Srinivasan and Virginia Harrison, ‘Mapped: the vast network of security deals spanning the Pacific, and what it means’, Guardian (London), 9 Jul 2024 (www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/ jul/09/pacific-islands-security-deals-australia-usa-china).

7. European Commission, ‘The EU Strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’, 16 Sep 2021, p.13 (www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/ files/jointcommunication_2021_24_1_en.pdf, acc 15 Aug 2024); CRIMARIO (Critical Maritime Routes Indo Pacific Project) II ‘Mission and Objectives’ (www.crimario.eu/mission-and-objectives/).

8. Dayant, p.4; Meg Keen, ‘Infrastructure for influence: Pacific Islands building spree’, 31 Oct 2023, The Interpreter (www.lowyinstitute. org/the-interpreter/infrastructure-influence-pacific-islands-buildingspree).

9. Dayant, p.5.

10. Ibid., pp.9–10.

11. PIFS, 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent (2022), p.6.

12. PIFS, Action Plan, op cit.

13. Meg Taylor, ‘Pacific-led Regionalism Undermined’, 25 Sep 2023, Asia Society Policy Institute (asiasociety.org/policy-institute/pacificled-regionalism-undermined).

14. PIFS, Fiftieth Pacific Islands Forum: Tuvalu, Forum Communiqué, 13–16 Aug 2019 (forumsec.org/publications/fiftieth-pacific-islandsforum-tuvalu-13-16-august-2019).

15. International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, ‘Xi expounds on China’s policy toward Pacific island countries’, 10 Jul 2023 (www.idcpc.gov.cn/english2023/ttxw_5749/202307/ t20230718_159301.html#:~:text=He%20pointed%20out%20 that%20China,all%20countries%2C%20big%20or%20small.).

16. White House, ‘Pacific Partnership Strategy of the United States’, Sep 2022 (whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PacificPartnership-Strategy.pdf), p.5.

17. White House, ‘Statement by Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States on the Establishment of the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP)’, 24 Jun 2022 (www.whitehouse. gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/24/statement-byaustralia-japan-new-zealand-the-united-kingdom-and-the-unitedstates-on-the-establishment-of-the-partners-in-the-blue-pacific-pbp/).

18. Taylor, op cit; Mathew Doidge ‘EU–Pacific Development Relations and the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent’ (2022), DIPLO Development Summaries 6 (ir.canterbury.ac.nz/items/e1c76602ddbc-4aa7-a34d-5139e42db981).

19. Greg Fry, Tarcisius Kabutaulaka and Terence Wesley-Smith, ‘“Partners in the Blue Pacific” initiative rides roughshod over established regional processes’, 5 Jul 2022, Dev Policy Blog (devpolicy.org/pbpinitiative-rides-roughshod-over-regional-processes-20220705/).

20. Daniel Hurst, ‘Pacific Islands Forum communique taken down after Chinese envoy calls Taiwan reference “unacceptable”’, 30 Aug 2024, Guardian (www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/30/pacif ic-islands-forum-communique-taken-down-after-chinese-envoycalls-taiwan-reference-unacceptable).

21. Taylor, op cit.

22. Christine Rovoi, ‘Experts warn of Pacific economic challenges if seasonal work schemes not carefully managed’, 22 May 2024, Pacific Media Network (pmn.co.nz/read/pacific-region/experts-warn-ofbrain-drain-issues-if-pacific-seasonal-work-schemes-not-carefullymanaged).

23. Daniel Hurst, ‘Here be nodules: will deep-sea mineral riches divide the Pacific family?’, Guardian, 10 Nov 2023 (www.theguardian.com/ environment/2023/nov/10/pacific-islands-forum-deep-sea-miningharm-risks).

24. See generally Anna Powles, ‘How Aotearoa New Zealand is Responding to Strategic Competition in the Pacific Islands Region’ (2023), Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs (repository.library. georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1084984).

25. Nanaia Mahuta, ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Engagement: Partnering for Resilience’, speech, 3 Nov 2021 (www.beehive.govt. nz/speech/aotearoa-new%C2%A0zealand%E2%80%99s-pacificengagement-partnering-resilience); Cabinet paper, ‘New Zealand’s Pacific Engagement: From Reset to Resilience’, 11 Nov 2021, CAB21-MIN-0401 (www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/Cabinet-papers/Cab-PaperNZ-Pacific-Engagement-From-Reset-to-Resilience.pdf).

26. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, ‘Secure Together Tō Tātou Korowai Manaaki New Zealand’s National Security Strategy 2023–2028’ (4 Aug 2023) (www.dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/ files/2023-11/national-security-strategy-aug2023.pdf) p.40.