Author: Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand’s evolving foreign policy – especially with China – is put under the microscope by international analyst Geoffrey Miller, who says it’s important to consider the wider trends and not just the latest twist in the story. This week’s meeting between Jacinda Ardern and Scott Morrison in Queenstown was yet another opportunity to judge the state of New Zealand’s relationship with China. It added to 2021’s ever-growing list. The year began with January’s Freudian slip by Damien O’Connor, who said that Australia needed to “follow us and show respect” to China. In March, New Zealand foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta...

New Zealand’s foreign minister is ruffling feathers. International analyst Geoffrey Miller explores Nanaia Mahuta’s orientation to her job, Beijing, and Belarus. Nanaia Mahuta’s comments on China in a Guardian interview this week brought a veiled rebuke from Beijing – and a new wave of international headlines. It was a fresh reminder that the foreign minister’s words are being closely watched – and not just by China itself. Mahuta is undoubtedly ruffling feathers. But if what appears to be her underlying strategy succeeds – moving Wellington back towards Beijing, while doing just enough to keep traditional Western allies on board –...

This week’s Budget has more than just financial accounts. International analyst Geoffrey Miller delves into what the allocations say about the direction of foreign policy under the new ministers. There are some new clues to be found in the Budget that illustrate the foreign affairs and trade agenda of the Labour Government, under new ministers Nanaia Mahuta and Damien O’Connor. The headline item and only new spending for Vote Foreign Affairs was a $344m appropriation to redevelop Scott Base in Antarctica. Of course, this is significant new money – and a substantial boost on previous plans to spend only $200m....

So far, the New Zealand Government has been remarkably silent about the Gaza-Israel conflict. Geoffrey Miller argues that Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta could be helping meditate for peace. The growing Gaza crisis is testing Nanaia Mahuta’s recent assertion that New Zealand has an independent foreign policy. The conflict between Israel and Hamas-controlled Gaza could be a golden opportunity for Mahuta to take the lead and forge her own path on the world stage. New Zealand could be following Norway’s example and helping to broker a ceasefire and mediate wider peace attempts in the region. But if anything, New Zealand’s response...

Below is an Arabic summary/translation of my article ‘Nanaia Mahuta’s foreign policy reset: the first six months’ , originally published in English for the Democracy Project on 29 April 2021. The summary/translation was produced and kindly offered for republication here by Mohammed Dagamseh of the Embassy of the State of Kuwait, Wellington: تقرير تحليلي للأشهر الستة الأولى لوزيرة الخارجية النيوزيلاندية الجديدة نانايا ماهوتا وسياستها الخارجية في مقال للكاتب والمحلل السياسي Geoffrey Miller منشور له في جامعة فيكتوريا في ويلينغتون في مشروع معهد الديمقراطية/ Democracy Project 29 أبريل 2021 أشار فيه إلى ذكرى ستة شهور لتعيين نانايا ماهوتا وزيرا للخارجية النيوزيلاندية....

Jacinda Ardern’s speech at the China Business Summit was a crowd-pleaser. Geoffrey Miller explains its role in the “rebalancing” of New Zealand’s orientation to China and the West. For critics who believed she had gone soft on China, Jacinda Ardern’s line that differences between China and New Zealand were becoming “harder to reconcile” will be interpreted as tough talk. They will see the speech as backtracking and stepping back from what they considered an appeasement-like stance from Ardern’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta. For its part, China will be likely to understand Ardern’s speech as a necessary component of a wider...

This Sunday marks the six-month anniversary of Nanaia Mahuta’s appointment as foreign minister. Geoffrey Miller looks at how she is grappling with some fundamental geopolitical challenges. In just her first six months, Nanaia Mahuta has already achieved something remarkable. She is arguably New Zealand’s highest-profile foreign minister in decades – and all without even leaving the country. Her speech to the China Council last week – and the ensuing Q&A in which she openly signalled an unwillingness to sign up to future Five Eyes statements criticising China – has proven to be a pivotal moment. It has unleashed a debate...

A new analysis by the Democracy Project of Nanaia Mahuta’s public statements and tweets over the past six months reveals some intriguing initial insights into her foreign policy agenda. By the end of Wednesday this week, Nanaia Mahuta had made 31 formal statements or speeches on foreign affairs in her time as minister. On Twitter, she had published 85 original tweets (i.e. excluding retweets of others) on foreign affairs over the same time period. Of the 31 official statements and speeches on the Beehive website, eight statements related to either Australia or the Pacific. Four were concerned with the provision...

Senior Twitter executives this week spoke at a Dunedin conference on social media and democracy to explain the platform’s approach towards freedom of expression. The high-level participation at the two-day conference by three of Twitter’s managers appears to be one of the first times that Twitter has engaged in such a public forum to explain its stance on free speech since the US Capitol was stormed on January 6. The events in Washington D.C.  that day precipitated the banning of then US President Donald Trump from both Twitter and Facebook and came against a backdrop of a wider discussion on...