Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s aid for Kiribati is being reviewed after its President and Foreign Minister cancelled a meeting with him last week.

Terms of Reference for the review are still being finalised, and it remains unclear whether or not funding will be cut or projects already under way would be affected, with Peters’ office saying no decisions would be made until the review was complete.

His office said Kiribati remained part of the RSE scheme and its eligibility for the Pacific Access Category was unaffected — for now.

• READ MORE: Other Kiribati aid reports

Peters had been due to meet with President Taneti Maamau last Tuesday and Wednesday, in what was to be the first trip by a New Zealand foreign minister to Kiribati in five years, and part of his effort to visit every Pacific country early in the government’s term.

Kiribati has been receiving increased aid from China in recent years.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Peters said he was informed about a week before the trip President Maamau would no longer be available.

“Around a week prior to our arrival in Tarawa, we were advised that the President and Foreign Minister of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau, was no longer available to receive Mr Peters and his delegation,” the statement said.

‘Especially disappointing’
“This was especially disappointing because the visit was to be the first in over five years by a New Zealand Minister to Kiribati — and was the result of a months-long effort to travel there.”

The spokesperson said the development programme was being reviewed as a result.

“New Zealand has been a long-standing partner to Kiribati. The lack of political-level contact makes it very difficult for us to agree joint priorities for our development programme, and to ensure that it is well targeted and delivers good value for money.

“That’s important for both the people of Kiribati and for the New Zealand taxpayer. For this reason, we are reviewing our development programme in Kiribati. The outcomes of that review will be announced in due course.

“Other aspects of the bilateral relationship may also be impacted.”

New Zealand spent $102 million on the development cooperation programme with Kiribati between 2021 and 2024, including on health, education, fisheries, economic development, and climate resilience.

Peters’ office said New Zealand deeply valued the contribution Recognised Seasonal Employer workers made to the country, and was committed to working alongside Pacific partners to ensure the scheme led to positive outcomes for all parties.

Committed to positive outcomes
“However, without open dialogue it is difficult to meet this commitment.”

They also said New Zealand was committed to working alongside our Pacific partners to ensure that the Pacific Access Category leads to positive outcomes for all parties, but again this would be difficult without open dialogue.

The spokesperson said the Kiribati people’s wellbeing was of paramount importance and the terms of reference would reflect this.

New Zealand stood ready “as we always have, to engage with Kiribati at a high level”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he wants New Zealand to be a partner of choice in the Pacific, as other countries make moves in the region.

Luxon is in Niue ahead of bilateral talks with Premier Dalton Tagalagi, and to celebrate 50 years of free association between the two countries.

Niue is self-governing, but part of New Zealand’s realm. Its citizens are NZ citizens, and New Zealand provides it with aid when asked.

• READ MORE:  Christopher Luxon, Dalton Tagelagi announce $20m Niue energy project
• Other Niue reports

Luxon said it was special to make Niue the first Pacific Island nation he has visited since taking office.

“I think the relationship’s in good heart. I think there’s a lot more for us to do together,” Luxon said.

Upon landing at Hanan International Airport, Luxon was greeted with an embrace from the Premier and a rousing takalo reception.

Later at the High Commission, Luxon and Tagalagi celebrated the King’s Birthday — Niue is 23 hours behind New Zealand, on the other side of the International Dateline — and toasted the relationship.

‘Rely heavily on support’
“I know that we rely heavily on your support. But we’re doing our very best to help ourselves also,” Tagalagi said.

The Speaker of Niue’s Assembly Hima Douglas said the relationship had given Niue peace, security and tranquility.

“When we look back, Prime Minister, we could not have asked for a better country to look after Niue. We could not have asked for a better development partner,” he said.

But as Niue celebrated the past, it was also looking to the future.

MP Emani Fakaotimanava-Lui told RNZ Pacific he wanted to see Niue generating its own finances.

“It would be best for Niue to look at how we can grow with New Zealand towards the next 50 years, possibly to be self-sustaining. Not to be dependent on New Zealand,” he said.

“Every time we need cash, we’re coming to the New Zealand government to ask can we get this money, can we get that money.”

Always a trusted partner
Luxon said he wanted Niue to understand New Zealand would always be a trusted partner.

“I think it’s about us betting really clear about the core infrastructure that sets Niue up for success. And doing what we can as New Zealand to support Niue, one of our realm countries, to make sure it is set up for success with a platform it needs to go forward.”

Bilateral talks between Luxon and Tagalagi will take place later today.

Luxon said the two would discuss the future of the relationship and how it sits in an increasingly contested region, as other nations start to woo the Pacific.

China has become Niue’s second largest trading partner, and has supported Niue with more investment.

“There’s… more strategic competition, whether it’s China, whether it’s the US, whether it’s other powers as well,” Luxon said.

“But this is the Pacific family and we prioritise the centrality of the Pacific Island Forum, we want that to be the regional architecture that deals with challenges within the region. But this is a fantastic region, and it has huge opportunity, and we want to be a trusted partner and a partner of choice.”

This afternoon Luxon heads to Fiji for the next stop on his Pacific mission, with geostrategic choppy water set to rear its head again.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The West and China continue to exert influence over the Pacific region. But discussions of Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are increasingly patronising, framing them as vulnerable, and omitting their agency.

In the battle for geopolitical influence and supremacy in the Pacific, the two most visible antagonists, the Anglo-West and China, are often the only two sides which matter to the mainstream media and political discourse.

The third side, the Pacific Big Ocean States (BOSs), are often forgotten, or relegated to the margin. In a subconscious way, this hierarchy of significance has roots in the colonial discourse which continued to undermine Pacific agency in various ways to this day.

• READ MORE: The United States – the Pacific bully
• Other reports on China in the Pacific

As an example, the recent whirlwind visit to the region by China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, caused media outcry and desperate diplomatic visitations — the political ripples spread far and wide provoking narratives of indignation, anxiety, and outright anger among the Anglo-Western states.

China responded by using tactical diplomatic language to tone down and conceal its own global expansionist agenda under the Belt and Road initiative. Both sides tried their best to project their humane and empathetic imagery towards the Pacific people while concealing their respective geopolitical, ideological, and strategic interests.

This is exactly what diplomacy is all about: putting on different masks when the circumstances require.

As it turned out, the BOSs “won” the diplomatic battle. They rejected China’s hegemonic and all-consuming plan to form a multilateral regional bloc in the form of the “China-Pacific Countries Common Development Vision,” as well as pushed back on the Anglo-Western insistence on keeping away from Chinese offerings.

Bilateral agreements
In the end, Pacific leaders signed bilateral agreements with China, based on specific developmental, economic, and wellbeing needs of individual states.

Bilateral agreements are common in international relations. The United States, Australia, and Aotearoa New Zealand all have bilateral economic agreements with China as part of their economic lifeline as modern states. Likewise, BOSs are also seeking economic agreements for their survival and why should they be discouraged from engaging with China or any other country in this regard?

There is a subtle ring of patronisation and paternalism here. The Anglo-Western states see the Pacific as their “natural” habitat which should not be shared with anyone else because that’s where they sent explorers, missionaries, and settlers, had colonies, fought against the Japanese invaders,  tested their nuclear bombs, built military bases, and exerted significant cultural influence.

During the Cold War, the Pacific was often described as the “American Lake” because it was literally littered with US military and naval bases.

Despite decolonisation in the region, this feeling of false imperial grandeur still persists in various subconscious forms. For instance, being lectured on the evils of China by the Anglo-West is almost like saying that the BOSs are not smart, strong, and sophisticated enough to stand up to China’s manipulative intents.

Aid, which is used to counter Chinese influence, often ends up benefiting the donor countries such as Australia and New Zealand because the contractors are largely from those countries.

On the other hand, China’s low quality infrastructure and debt-creating loans seem to suggest the rather patronising “beggars cannot be choosers” attitude. Chinese influence is far more cunningly subtle through its “soft power” long term approach compared to the rather abrupt short term approach of the Anglo-Saxon powers.

Common colonial experiences
China has strategically invoked the South-South discourse to engage with BOSs hoping that they will see each other as “developing” countries who share common colonial experiences of Western colonialism.

Whether the BOSs buy this ideological bait is another question. By and large, BOSs still see China as a highly industrialised state with lots of goodies to dangle and benefit from, and not so much as a fellow “poor” Global South brethren.

One of the ironies of history is that colonialism, apart from creating a culture of subservience, has also deeply embedded a strong pro-Anglo-Western cultural orientation amongst the BOSs, despite moments of political and ideological resistance. Most Pacific people speak English, go through Anglo-Western education, are readily exposed to Anglo-Western cultural influences such as music, Hollywood movies, and other forms of ideological hegemony, and have close connections with their neighbours such as Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, where they migrate for various reasons.

These factors have created a deep sense of connection with the Anglo-Western world, a reality which China will never be able to replicate, or even challenge, in the next 20 years, despite its extensive “soft power” machinations.

The BOSs’ engagement with China is more economic and diplomatic and less cultural, although this has been on the increase through scholarship offerings and the establishment of Confucius institutions, among other strategies. BOSs frame their engagement with China on the basis of need rather than ideological alignment as is often assumed and misrepresented by their Anglo-Western neighbours. They are able to play the diplomatic and geopolitical game in subtle and smart ways that keep the big powers guessing and sometimes worried.

The reality is that while individual BOSs may sign bilateral agreements with China, none of them will allow itself to become China’s patron state, the same way that the US has been creating buffer and client states around the world. This is because, as they probably know, the cost of assimilation into China’s sphere of influence will be massive and they have a lot to lose.

Some BOSs have adopted a “Look North Policy” and in recent years Pacific students have travelled  to China for studies, Pacific businesses have sold their products to the Chinese market, and states have engaged in bilateral or multilateral deals with the Asian power. This should be seen as part of the diplomatic diversification process rather than a colonising project.

Just another partner
The reality is that China will always become just another partner and not the alternative to the Anglo-Western connection. Most Pacific people will opt to migrate to New Zealand, US, or Australia, rather than China.

This is where the anxiety and fear of the Anglo-Western countries about a Chinese “takeover” is not just misplaced, but utterly irrational. It does not consider the agency of the BOSs to wisely, strategically, and imaginatively navigate their way through the treacherous geopolitical waters. The overreaction by the Anglo-Western bloc about potential Chinese influence sends out a rather unsavoury message about “bullying” and “colonial attitude.”

This is reinforced by insults such as that by former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the Pacific is Australia’s “backyard” or the racist insinuation by Heather du Plessis-Allan (a right-wing New Zealand journalist) that Pacific people are “leeches,” or the unkind and patronising labelling by some Australian academics and policy thinkers of the Pacific as an “Arc of Instability.”

Residues of neo-colonial perception are consciously and subconsciously entrenched in the Anglo-Western perception of the BOSs. This has a long history. The Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901, an offshoot of the White Australian policy, was designed to remove Pacific people from Australia.

In New Zealand, the Dawn Raid era of the mid-1970s and early 1980s saw the arrest, harassment, and removal of Pacific peoples who were unwanted in New Zealand. The then  Australian Immigration Minister Jim Forbes said in May 1971 that “Pacific Islanders are unsophisticated and unsuited to settlement in Australia.”

Pacific people have always been treated as dispensable entities who need to be kept out, only invited in to support their economy as cheap dispensable labour. This philosophy and practice, which started during the Australian labour trade in the 1800s and in New Zealand in the 1950s and 60s, continues today in both countries under the seasonal labour scheme.

Times have changed and it’s important for our bigger members of the Vuvale (family)  to engage with their Pacific neighbours as equal partners, not subordinate and unsophisticated backyard children. The BOS’s agency needs full recognition as capable of making their own mind and plotting their trajectory towards the future they desire.

The old order where colonial paternalism, imperial patronage, racialised narratives, and belittling perceptions shaped relationships no longer have any place. The Anglo-Western countries in the region are good at ticking the UN Sustainable Development boxes such as equity, diversity, and inclusion (SDG10), but they hardly  practice these in meaningful ways.

No matter how well these subtle manoeuvres are diplomatically concealed, these still cannot escape the gaze of Pacific BOSs because they live with it all the time.  Time for a dramatic attitudinal transformation.

Steven Ratuva is a professor and interdisciplinary scholar and director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand. This article was first published by the Australian Institute of International Affairs under a Creative Commons Licence and is republished with the author’s permission.