Donald Digby
It should come as no surprise that a visit from the PLAN was timed beautifully to coincide with the breaking news of the Cook Islands/China deal to “explore seabed mining”.
Roughly translated, that means there’s going to be a lot more Chinese warships in the South Pacific for the foreseeable future.
What should come as a surprise, and cause for concern, is the weak response from the NZ Government and in particular Mr Christoper Luxon. I will start with the govt who just got absolutely towelled by the Cook Islands. Using the “what are you gonna do about it?” strategy the Cook Islands have put NZ in a no win situation. Risk driving the islands further into the arms of China with sanctions or get dragged into a fight for influence against a bigger, wealthier, opponent?
To make matters worse any attempts at bravado from our govt is hollow, even if we wanted to physically stop them we couldn’t. Instead we had to watch our foreign minister, defence minister and prime minister go on about not being told in advance, it’s a first of its kind, we have raised concerns and so on. Roughly translated: they have no idea what’s going on and still don’t.
But specifically Luxon should be called out for his lack of leadership. There’s no doubt that this is a first of its kind situation and for many Kiwis it will come as some shock. To see Luxon admit he really doesn’t know what’s going on was astounding and emphasizes the saying ‘It’s better to keep your mouth shut, than open it and let everyone know your stupid.’
Surely a better tactic would have been ‘We don’t know what’s going on but we don’t really care’, or, better yet, ‘Don’t be a bunch of pussies’. He could also have strongly reiterated our close security ties with Five Eyes and AUKUS, except that’s not the case: our actions there of late can best be described as the troublemaker not pulling their weight. One only needs to consider how a ‘Peace thru Strength’ US Foreign policy would view our current defense budget, let alone what that translates to in the event of a real fight.
Our govt says we can no longer rely on being isolated from the world. I suggest it’s just another case of NZ being last in the queue.
Still, if all else fails we could try doing a haka. That might help.
