Pearls and Irritations

Twenty years’ ago the then leader of the conservative New Zealand National Party, Don Brash, got into hot water when a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) official reported that he had assured a visiting delegation from the US Senate that if his party were elected to office NZ’s ‘nuclear-free policy’ would be ‘gone by lunchtime’.

Since this promise contravened the National Party’s official policy that it would only change NZ’s nuclear policy after a referendum this made him easy meat for the ruling Labour Party government led by Helen Clark. Brash tried to distance himself from the statement personally, though not denying that it was made- ‘I don’t know who said it. I’ve consistently said I don’t remember.’ Nevertheless the statement remained to haunt him.

Since then Don Brash has broken with most of his former comrades in the National Party, and the further-right ACT Party (which he led briefly in 2011), and is now publicly standing together with his former nemesis, Helen Clark, to protest against the subservience of recent New Zealand governments, under both Labour and now National, to America’s anti-China policy. Helen Clark has been the most independent-minded of NZ prime ministers, certainly in recent times – she refused to send combat troops to serve in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, though she did deploy ‘reconstruction personnel’ to support the American occupation and, it is claimed, army engineers to protect NZ dairy facilities. The strengthening of her stand against the subordination of NZ interests to American imperial strategy is certainly welcome, but not surprising.

The Damascene Conversion of Don Brash is freighted with more significance. He has published at least four personal articles over the last year condemning this self-destructive subordination –An Independent Foreign Policy? [13 February 2023], I love America, but … [26 July 2023]; Why on earth would we join Aukus in any form? [23 December2023]; Why not AUKUS? [17 April 2024]. He has also written at least four with Helen Clark –NZ must not abandon our independent foreign policy [13 February 2024], Aukus and NZ: We should have no part of any military-related arrangements against China [21 June 2024], We’re approaching a critical junction [22 June 2024], and on 16 July – Statement on NZ Government jeopardising NZ’s independent foreign policy and economic security.

The thrust of these articles can easily be gleaned from their titles, and it is not, in itself, particularly revolutionary. It is basically stating what is obvious to any informed person whose salary, to borrow from Upton Sinclair’s aphorism, does not depend on denying it.

Don Brash is not alone. He shares a website with Michael Basset, a historian who was a minister in David Lange’s Labour governments of the 1980s and 1990s, and Rodney Hyde, his predecessor as leader of the ACT Party. The website, entitled Bassett, Brash & Hide (sic), is currently publishing about 30 articles a month from a variety of writers, and viewpoints.

This reshuffling of the traditional left-to-right political spectrum is by no means confined to New Zealand. It is perhaps most evident in Europe where mainstream parties – Labour, Socialist, Conservative, and Green – have slithered into irrelevance and impotence in an environment churned by the struggle of America to retain its hegemony. The demands of Washington have unleashed and exacerbated social forces which were already lashing against the certainties of established political parties and ideas. These demands have been superimposed on top of the underlying challenges of climate change, immigration, gender issues and the destructive creativity of technology. This has all proved too much for the ruling political elites which have tended to neglect and even sacrifice the interests of their people in an attempt to satisfy America. Bereft of traditional policies they are left with little to offer beyond anodyne banality.

The recent article by Brash and Clark was triggered by an interview New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon gave to the Financial Times while answering his summons to the July NATO summit in Washington. The FT interview was titled New Zealand prime minister vows to name and shame China over spying. 

The allegations about spying appear to have little merit and seem to be based on claims by two former MPs who were members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). This is a grouping of malleable politicians organised by Republican hawk Senator Marco Rubio. Brash and Clark refused to get excited about the spying allegations:

“Does China spy on New Zealand? Almost certainly, just as the US, the UK, and countless others, including New Zealand, spy on other countries. Is China the only country spying on New Zealand, and is it only governments that engage in spying? Almost certainly not. The obsessive focus on spying by China suggests an agenda going beyond alerting and equipping New Zealanders to better manage all relevant risks.

The Luxon alarm over China’s supposedly egregious behaviour was really no more than a signalling of fealty to America. That fealty means abandoning any independence in NZ’s foreign policy and becoming an adjunct, and a minor one at that, to American power. Amongst other things, as adumbrated by Luxon, it entails NZ forces serving under America in The Philippines, in addition to those already under US command in South Korea and the South China Sea, and of course moving to participating in AUKUS.

Brash and Clark eloquently and succinctly demolish the arguments for this subservience to US policy and highlight the dangers this poses to New Zealand:

“New Zealand has a huge stake in maintaining a cordial relationship with China. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain such a relationship if the Government continues to align its positioning with that of the United States.

“New Zealand has for decades sought engagement with China and its inclusion in the international system. A policy of isolating China serves no one’s interests, and has major implications for New Zealand’s economic security.

“A better approach would be to follow the example of Singapore – friendly to both China and the US, but definitely not in a treaty relationship with either. The course which the New Zealand Government is now taking, with no electoral mandate for a radical change to foreign policy, carries huge risks to our country”, Helen Clark and Don Brash said.

Much more could be said about the foolish and dangerous abandonment of an independent foreign policy – the possibility of the US going to war against China (and Russia) as its struggle to retain hegemony – is very real. Hopefully the raising of the standard of critical thought by this unlikely pair – too prominent to be ignored even by the local media – will help shatter the complacent myopia of NZ’s foreign policy towards China grounded in unthinking obedience to the US.

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