Foreign Minister Winston Peters with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown. Photos / Grace Fiavaai
A standoff between New Zealand and the Cook Islands reflects an urgent question in the Pacific: Is China a threat or a partner for growth?
Every year, tens of thousands of tourists visit the pristine beaches and turquoise lagoons of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. Their business sustains this small nation of 15 islands and atolls, where no building is taller than a coconut tree.
Most travellers come from New Zealand, the Cook Islands’ former colonial ruler, and the two have long had close ties. But in recent months, they have been locked in an icy standoff.
The fallout was over a wide-ranging partnership agreement the Cook Islands signed this year with China. The deal, viewed as the latest sign of China’s encroachment in the region, has alarmed New Zealand.
New Zealand has put on hold millions of dollars in aid, leaving a hole in the Cook Islands’ budget. Prime Minister Mark Brown of the Cook Islands has threatened to “go somewhere else” for his country’s infrastructure needs. There have been accusations of New Zealand using aid as a bargaining chip, and rare protests in Rarotonga, the main island, by people concerned about jeopardising ties with New Zealand.
Even after the two countries’ leaders met face to face last week at a regional forum, there has been no sign of a breakthrough.
“It was a serious change when they entered those arrangements with China, and we knew nothing of it,” New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, said in an interview last month.
New Zealand argues that the Cook Islands was obligated to consult with it before signing the deal, and says there will be no new aid until steps are taken to “repair the relationship and restore trust”. Brown has pointed out that New Zealand signed its own partnership agreement with China in 2014 – without consulting the Cook Islands – reaping tens of billions of dollars in economic gain.
But in the decade since that agreement, New Zealand has grown increasingly wary of China’s intentions in its vicinity. It has watched as China used coercive trade measures to hamstring Australia’s economy, test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific, and sent a naval task force into the waters between Australia and New Zealand to carry out live fire drills.
Peters said China’s deal with the Cook Islands “fits a certain recent developmental pattern” of Beijing’s ambitions in the region.
Diplomats from the Cook Islands and New Zealand were “working their way through” the former’s agreement with China to work out points of concern, New Zealand officials said.
The paused funding – worth $18.2 million – was for health, education and tourism; a separate $3 million in aid for cyber security is still being provided, according to New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Analysts said the pause in aid was an extraordinary move by New Zealand. It is a different tack from Australia, which has dramatically increased aid spending in the region.
Since 1965, the Cook Islands has been self-governing, but relies on New Zealand for defence. Cook Islanders hold New Zealand passports and the majority of them – nearly 85,000 – live in New Zealand. The parameters of their relationship are being tested as China has deepened its presence in the Pacific.
In 2022, China signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, another small Pacific nation, heightening fears that Beijing was aiming to establish a military foothold in the region. Both Chinese and Cook Islands officials have said their pact does not include security or military matters.
New Zealand’s intelligence chief, in a speech this year, warned that China’s ambition in making inroads into the Pacific was to “link economic and security co-operation, create competing regional architectures”. China’s embassy in Wellington called his comments disinformation, saying there is no “secret agenda” to the Cook Islands agreement.
David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, said it was clear that New Zealand’s objections had to do with Beijing signalling increased military ambitions in the region.
“In a different strategic context, that was fine. With different partners, that was probably fine,” he said. “The strategic context has changed.”
The Cook Islands, one of the smallest of the Pacific island nations, has also been a focal point of emerging competition over seabed mining. The agreement with China included pledges to co-operate on exploring seabed minerals. The United States last month reached its own deal with the Cook Islands on mining the sea floor.
Rashneel Kumar, editor of Cook Island News, which broke the news of New Zealand’s funding pause, said that, like other small Pacific island nations with developmental challenges and climate change risks, his country needed support wherever it could get it. All around Avarua, the capital, are physical reminders of this – the courthouse, the police headquarters, the national stadium, each built by China.
“The feeling is there that China has helped us in some areas and we are grateful for that,” he said. “But the general consensus is, we should be careful who we partner with.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Victoria Kim
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