Towards a more pro-active role.

• Author: Clark, Helen
• Position: International relations - New Zealand Foreign Policy

Leader of the Opposition Helen Clark reflects on recent international developments, and advocates a positive and active role for New Zealand in world affairs.

When I last addressed the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs in 1995, I spoke about New Zealand's relations with Asia. My thesis was that the Asian thrust of New Zealand foreign policy from the early 1990s had not been well presented. A new government elected at the end of 1990 had made much of what it said was a new, high prioritisation of Asia in New Zealand's foreign policy. Government pronouncements about the policy, however, gave the impression that New Zealand was becoming more interested in Asia mainly because Asia was becoming wealthier and would therefore be a more important export outlet for New Zealand. The inference was that if the economies of Asia had not developed so much New Zealand's level of interest in Asia might have been a good deal less.

From time to time New Zealand's foreign affairs and defence policies have seemed to be driven by narrowly mercantile interests. It was unfortunate that the higher prioritisation of Asia by the government seemed to fit that description. I suggested in my 1995 speech that the Asian thrust of foreign policy should have been presented in the context of the continuity of New Zealand's interest in Asia. For we have been particularly active in our relationships with the nations of Asia, for better or worse, for more than five decades.

During the Second World War, the fall of Singapore and the advance of the Japanese through the Pacific as far as Papua New Guinea served to remind us of which region of the world we actually lived in. From the 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s, New Zealand was engaging very much with Asia. Our military were involved in the war against Japan and in Korea, Malaya, and Vietnam. Through the Colombo Plan we helped in our small way to educate a generation of leaders in business and the professions in Asia.

Ever since the formation of ASEAN New Zealand has been supportive of and a participant in the annual ministerial dialogues following ASEAN meetings. We have backed the new fora and institutions which have been developing in the Asia-Pacific region, covering security dialogue and economic development. We have had for decades extensive diplomatic representation in the region.

It is important that New Zealand casts its interest in Asia and it must be a high priority interest -- firmly in the context of that continuity of having developed substantive relationships since the Second World War. New Zealand must not invite the accusation that it is only a fair weather friend there for the good times and for the business.

Since I made that speech in 1995, a lot has happened in Asia. There has been a peaceful leadership transition in China. Hong Kong has been peacefully reintegrated with China. Longstanding dissident, Kim Dae Jung, has become the President of his country, South Korea. Governments have changed rather often in Japan and Thailand. Much of Asia, outside China, Taiwan, and Singapore, has been engulfed in a serious economic crisis which has implications for the world's economies and not only for our small, vulnerable trading economy.

The Prime Minister in her speech to the NZIIA's annual dinner refused to describe what had happened in Asia as a...