The Trans-Tasman partnership in an Asian century
The latest Asia:NZ Outlook report, Outlook 13, is co-published with Sydney’s Lowy Institute for International Policy. Standing together, in single file: Australian views of New Zealand and Asia surveys Australia’s perceptions of New Zealand in the context of the two countries’ growing engagement with Asia.
This is the first in an upcoming series of papers that will analyse New Zealand’s place in Asia – the perceptions of New Zealand from the outside, through the eyes of experts based in major countries across the region.
Dr Malcolm Cook, Outlook 13 author and East Asia program director at the Lowy Institute, examines the inherent tensions between a dialogue of partnership and a spirit of bilateral competition that co-exist in the long-standing relationship between Australia and New Zealand.
The two countries have been bonded, quite literally, by blood; ongoing co-operation is evidenced by a shared view of the Asian region’s crucial importance and a list of impressive partnership cross-links.
Relatively equal importance has been placed by Australian and New Zealand government policy on future engagement with Asia. This is where the two countries are seen as standing together. Joint participation in the Colombo Plan, the Asian Development Bank, the East Asia Summit or the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA (ratified in 2009) – to name just a few – paints a picture of lasting mutual ties.
Dr Cook argues that the way Australia views its significance in Asia and the manner in which it pursues affirmation of its own status leave little room for New Zealand to retain an equal footing – instead of walking alongside, New Zealand may just be peeking over the shoulder of its big trans-Tasman cousin at the Asian neighbours to the north. Australia has been forever conscious of asserting its size and correlated strategic importance. This has led to some estrangement from New Zealand and failure to see New Zealand as an important partner in the Asian region.
“Australian foreign policy focuses on Asia as a strategic arena of major power interaction,” stresses Dr Cook. New Zealand, for its part, runs the risk of becoming “mostly noticeable by its absence” in the debate in Australia on how to deal with Asia. Bilateral co-operation in “the troubled South Pacific” seems to be the key driver of trans-Tasman partnership as seen by Canberra.
While Australia puts the emphasis on asserting its weight in Asia (some more hardline governments have rejected a definition of Australia as merely a “middle power”), New Zealand by contrast often relies on its “small power” agility – hence its greater export portfolio diversification and an efficiency that allowed it to be the first developed economy to secure a free trade agreement with China. According to Dr Cook, “at times New Zealand’s engagement with Asia is quieter and more effective.”
With more than half of the top 10 Australian and New Zealand export markets located in Asia, export figures have generally provided a very strong case in favour of engagement with Asia. Recent economic growth in Asia has led Canberra and Wellington to reaffirm the economic aspect of engagement as a clear necessity.
It is in the economic sphere that the two countries are likely to stand opposite each other in significant competition. Following the NZ-China FTA, New Zealand’s exports to China rose by 47 percent in 2009. The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) that New Zealand set up in 2005 with Brunei, Singapore and Chile this year began a process of expanding to include the United States, Australia, Peru and Viet Nam.
In Dr Cook’s opinion, all this is proof of “the greater ease that smaller, like-minded countries have in working together and the benefits that can provide to larger ones.” Wellington is again ahead of Canberra having completed the first round of negotiations for a free trade agreement with India (April 2010).
In guise of conclusion, the author suggests that, for both Australia and New Zealand, the debate on “having a place at the table” in Asia is ongoing. For Australia, being there is of primary importance. If New Zealand also gets its place at the table, then Australia will have New Zealand in its Asian focus.
Outlook 13 was officially launched by the Lowy Institute in Sydney on 1 June 2010.
