Good piece by Steve Mollman on China and New Zealand in Oceania. Quotes Cleo Paskal:
However, the strategic effectiveness of the free-trade agreement New Zealand and Australia have in place with Pacific island nations, called PACER Plus, came under criticism this week ahead of Ardern’s trip. The agreement as structured amounts to “bullying” and can make the island nations poorer and less resilient, making it more likely they’ll accept soft loans from China, argued Cleo Paskal, an associate fellow with the Chatham House think tank, at a New Zealand Institute of International Affairs conference. Nations like Fiji and Papua New Guinea declined to join the deal, Paskal noted, over concerns it would harm their economy. She warned that New Zealand risks being a “strategic nincompoop,” accidentally acting to shore up China’s influence in the region, rather than its own.
“Times are too tense at the moment for such an obvious and avoidable own goal,” she said.
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