Beijing warned New Zealand about progressing with its plans to join the AUKUS alliance.
The defence and foreign ministers of Australia and New Zealand met on Feb. 1, after which Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles announced that a delegation would travel to New Zealand “very shortly” to discuss Pillar II of the AUKUS pact—the security partnership between Australia, the UK, and the United States.
The alliance is widely seen—including by Beijiing—as a response to the Chinese Communist Party’s growing influence in the Pacific.
A key part of AUKUS is the arming of the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear-powered submarines from its two partners, at a cost of up to $368 billion by the mid-2050s.
New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that discussions between the two countries were of “far greater acuity and importance than it’s ever been in the lifetime of anybody in this room” given the current global climate.
When asked if he was concerned that joining AUKUS would have repercussions for New Zealand’s relationship with its biggest trading partner, Mr. Peters said: “China is a country that practices something I have got a lot of time for. They practice their national interest … and that’s what we’re doing.”
Beijing has used an editorial in the China Daily—a newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the CCP—to warn Wellington that joining AUKUS would “cast a shadow on bilateral ties and even offset what has been achieved in advancing bilateral cooperation.”
Until the recent change of government, New Zealand had seemed comfortable about the fact that it was not a party to the pact, the editorial notes. But now the country seeks to join Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement, which centres on advanced technology sharing, including artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and military interoperability.
The newspaper claimed New Zealand was undermining its obligations under non-nuclear obligation treaties, a similar argument it has meted out against Australia.
It further claimed New Zealand was simply following the footsteps of the United States.
Beijing’s local embassy reacted even more strongly to the joint ANZMIN statement, saying the CCP “strongly deplores and firmly opposes it.”
The envoy claimed it was a manifestation of a “Cold War mentality” and that it would “undermine peace and stability.”
The recent warning is also a reversal of the China Daily’s previous editorial stance.
