The AUKUS debate in New Zealand misses the big picture

Abstract

The topic of whether New Zealand should participate in AUKUS or not has emerged as a significant debate in popular political discourses in 2024. Thus far, clear pro-AUKUS and anti-AUKUS camps have developed. The pro-AUKUS camp emphasises the growing threat of China in the Indo-Pacific and New Zealand’s lacking technological capabilities that have it exposed if a conflict emerges. The anti-AUKUS camp emphasises New Zealand’s embedded independent foreign policy and staunch anti-nuclear stance which makes participating in AUKUS an ethically untenable option. However, neither side has considered the deeper, ontological questions on the table and how this affects New Zealand’s main foreign policy concern: the Pacific. New Zealand’s recent engagement with the Pacific and its experimentation with a Māori foreign policy led it to being a champion of the Blue Pacific narrative, an ontologically distinct approach that challenges the geopolitically-focussed Indo-Pacific concept. Yet, in the wake of New Zealand's flirtation with AUKUS, the Blue Pacific has been largely ignored in debates. Ultimately, the debate about AUKUS misses the big picture as it, so far, limits the focus on the true existential threat to New Zealand and the Pacific which is not China’s rise but rather climate change.