Intrigue in paradise: Cook Islands edition

There’s trouble a-brewin’ in a tiny corner of the South Pacific, so let’s get you up to speed.

This one takes us to the Cook Islands: a stunning Polynesian archipelago (pop. 15,000) in ‘free association’ with New Zealand — that means it runs its own affairs and enters treaties, though its citizens are automatically Kiwis with Kiwi passports, Kiwi dollars, and Kiwi support on foreign affairs, defence, disasters, and beyond. Lots of Kiwi (a common term for New Zealanders).

Anyway, the Cooks are now generating headlines because their prime minister, Mark Brown, just touched down in Beijing for a five-day visit to sign a ✌️Comprehensive Strategic Partnership✌️, the text of which he’s declined to share with New Zealand.

Why’s that a big deal? Let’s dive in:

From Brown’s perspective, his deal with China has zero security angle like the infamous China-Solomon Islands deal that rocked the region in 2022. Rather, it’s just focused on economic development, so there’s no need to be running it past the Kiwis, just like how the Kiwis never ran their own China pact past the Cook Islands back in 2014.

And that hints at a broader issue — many Cook Islanders want to assert their own identity a little more, particularly since they reached high income status in 2019. For Brown, that means signing their own deals in their own interests as equals, including (in this case) to diversify away from an over-reliance on tourism, and an over-reliance on NZ.

From New Zealand’s perspective, there’s no inherent problem with either Brown objective, but it’s the how that’s the issue: the Cooks and New Zealand aren’t just friends, they’re family — 100,000 Cook Islanders live in NZ. And yet Brown is now signing a secret deal with someone the main NZ intelligence agency just described as an “illiberal state” that carries out “malicious activity” in New Zealand.

As for Brown claiming it’s just a harmless economic pact? The Kiwis aren’t buying that, either. While Brown may insist he sees a valid distinction there, Beijing arguably doesn’t — its biggest fisheries and infrastructure firms are mostly state-owned, for example.

So while we can quibble over wording (and don’t you worry, dear Intriguer, there’s been quibbling), the Kiwis now see Brown’s move as a major breach of the special NZ-Cooks relationship that turns 60 later this year, noting “this lack of consultation is a matter of significant concern to the New Zealand government.” In the Pacific, that’s the equivalent of New Zealand raging down a moon-lit beach while someone yells “¡Montoya, por favor!“

As for Beijing’s perspective, what does tiny Cook Islands have to offer? Four things.

• First, location — Western intelligence agencies have long warned that China’s military wants to establish a foothold somewhere in the Pacific: that’d break Beijing’s sense of encirclement, sever a direct supply route between the US and its allies like Australia, and complicate broader Western military planning.
• Second is fisheries (apparently part of the draft Cooks text) — the entire Cook Islands exclusive economic zone is roughly the size of Mexico. That’s alotta fish.
• Third is critical minerals (also apparently in the text) — that sweet sweet seabed is rich in metals like cobalt, which the world is now rushing to secure via parallel races in the energy transition, tech ascendancy, and broader primacy, plus…
• Fourth, there’s China’s ability to convert the economic into the political and strategic — for example, its bases in the South China Sea started out as mere fishermen shelters. And it’s these kinds of military assets (ditto the old US base at Penrhyn atoll in the Cooks) that played a critical role in shaping WW2 and history.

As for the broader region’s perspective? The Cook Islands wants to be a pioneer in seabed mining, but that’s irritating some neighbours who fear damage to the ocean that sustains them. And second, there’s the broader implications of signing a secret deal with China — you can bet that just like in the Solomons case, some in the Pacific family (and not just Australia) will be quietly voicing their unease about Brown’s trip to Beijing.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

We’re gonna wrap it up with two words of the day here. The first is ‘wedging‘:

• New Zealand feels China is driving a wedge between it and the Cook Islands
• But in response, New Zealand seems to be wedging Brown against his own people, by repeatedly highlighting that the Cook Islanders themselves are also in the dark on this pact, and might end up paying a price, which leads us to…

The second word of the day, which is ‘bluffing’:

• By flying to Beijing without sharing the draft text with New Zealand, Brown has now effectively called NZ’s bluff — it’s a gambit that, with China now a willing suitor, New Zealand won’t dare impose costs on the Cook Islands.
• But New Zealand’s response suggests it might just impose costs on Brown instead — in shooting down a related Brown idea about the Cook Islands issuing its own passports, New Zealand has warned that Cook Islanders could end up losing their Kiwi citizenship and all that this entails. And this seems to be resonating, with social media ablaze, and a protest planned for right after Brown returns from China (encouraged, of course, by his political opponents).

Also worth noting:

• New Zealand’s new-ish government is also in a stoush with Kiribati, which is warming its ties with China while seemingly snubbing New Zealand.
• China recognised the Cook Islands in 1997 and has been an aid partner there since 2001. Meanwhile, the US just formally recognised the Cook Islands in 2023 as part of a broader push to counter China’s regional presence, opening new US embassies in Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and elsewhere.