Author: Geoffrey Miller

International analyst Geoffrey Miller reflects on the impact that the September 11 attacks had on New Zealand’s foreign policy This week’s anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 is also an opportunity to recall the impact the tragedy – and the response to it – had on New Zealand’s wider foreign policy. New Zealand immediately supported the US invasion of Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, with an initial deployment of Special Air Service (SAS) combat soldiers. A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan province followed in 2003. Amidst the recent...

International analyst Geoffrey Miller says New Zealand’s latest Covid-19 outbreak has once again delayed the country’s return to top-level face-to-face diplomacy – but this comes at a cost New Zealand’s new outbreak of Covid-19 has also stalled an attempt to restart the country’s top-level diplomatic engagement. Given the Delta variant’s spread in Auckland, a rumoured trip to the UN General Assembly in New York later this month by Jacinda Ardern is now all but off the table. It is the second time this year that the coronavirus has got in the way of the Prime Minister resuming international travel. A...

This week’s hard-hitting report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a reminder of the influential and inspirational role the United Nations can play. The UN’s Secretary General, António Guterres, called the new assessment – which predicts average global temperatures will be 1.5 degrees warmer by 2040 than they were in the pre-industrial era – “code red for humanity”. The IPCC was founded in 1988 by two UN agencies – the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Its role is to distil and package the scientific evidence for climate change, based on work...

As the Tokyo Olympics come to an end, Geoffrey Miller analyses the state of New Zealand’s wider relationship with Japan – and says that a very successful partnership may be about to become a lot more complicated. As New Zealand’s very successful Olympic campaign in Tokyo draws to a close, it’s easy to be equally positive and optimistic about the state of New Zealand’s wider relationship with Japan. If New Zealand’s trading relationships were Olympic sports, Japan would miss out on a medal – but not by much. Japan is New Zealand’s fifth-biggest trading partner – behind only China, Australia,...

A statement issued by the New Zealand Government alleging Chinese state involvement in hacking goes much further than a simple, pro forma endorsement of the views of New Zealand’s allies. Geoffrey Miller explains the significance. New Zealand joined Western allies on Monday by issuing a statement that called out alleged Chinese state involvement in hacking. The statement, headlined ‘New Zealand condemns malicious cyber activity by Chinese state-sponsored actors’, leaves no room for ambiguity. Beijing knows that New Zealand will sometimes make statements that are critical of China. But this statement is unusually forthright. It cannot be easily reinterpreted in a...

Geoffrey Miller looks over the lessons from the special APEC summit Today’s special virtual APEC summit was so modest in its aims that it was officially referred to only as an ‘informal leaders’ retreat on Covid-19’. From the outset, host Jacinda Ardern dampened down expectations for the meeting, warning reporters not to expect any significant breakthroughs. In that respect, New Zealand’s Prime Minister was right. A joint statement issued after the meeting included vague commitments to accelerate the production and distribution of vaccines. There was also agreement on the need to restore international travel links and strengthen supply chains that...

Jacinda Ardern has delivered a keynote speech on foreign policy. Geoffrey Miller reads between the lines. It was about APEC. And the Indo-Pacific. But most of all, it was about China. Jacinda Ardern’s keynote foreign policy address on Wednesday – at the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA) in Wellington – was another exercise in reading between the diplomatic lines. Ordinarily, the biggest New Zealand foreign policy story of the week would have almost certainly been this speech. But Monday’s surprise announcement that Jacinda Ardern would host an impromptu virtual APEC leaders’ meeting this Friday...

What is New Zealand’s most important role in a quickly changing geopolitical world? It could be mediating between China and the West, according to international analyst Geoffrey Miller. A keynote speech by Jacinda Ardern next week will set the tone for a busy few months of foreign policy activity, culminating in NZ’s virtual hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit in November. The coming months also include the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York in September and the COP26 climate change summit, to be held in Glasgow in late October and early November. Ardern...

International analyst Geoffrey Miller previews this weekend’s Otago Foreign Policy School This weekend’s Otago Foreign Policy School will be another chance for foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta to explain the Labour Government’s foreign policy agenda. The Dunedin conference has been held annually since 1966, except for last year, when it was cancelled amidst uncertainty over Covid-19. Mahuta will give the foreign minister’s traditional opening address to the conference on Friday. It will be closely watched in diplomatic circles for clues as to the future direction of New Zealand’s foreign policy under Labour. Mahuta’s speech to the China Council in April fuelled...