India Seeks New Zealand’s Support to Raise Presence in South Pacific Amid US-China Rivalry

Jaishankar’s New Zealand visit is the first by an Indian FM since 1991 and comes amid mounting competition between the US and China in the Pacific region, where New Zealand and Australia have been traditionally considered dominant regional powers.

Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has said that New Zealand’s perspective towards the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) will help “shape its perspective” towards the region, as he batted for greater security cooperation between the two countries in the region.

“If you need to know a new neighborhood, you need to have a friend there,” Jaishankar said during a discussion at the Auckland Business Council on Thursday, explaining that the Pacific region remained “sufficiently unsettled” amid growing geopolitical rivalry between China and the US.

The top Indian diplomat underlined that expanding “regional collaboration” between New Zealand and India was one of the “priorities” for New Delhi as far as bilateral ties were concerned.

He noted that the ‘White Shipping Agreement’ signed between the two countries during Indian Navy chief Admiral Hari Kumar’s visit to New Zealand last month would help increase maritime domain awareness.

Talking about the Quad grouping comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US , the Indian foreign minister further claimed that the US has become much more open in working with countries “outside the traditional security architecture” of Washington in the last decade or so.

“It has become much more flexible. It is not a small development,” Jainshakar said of the US.

The leaders of the Quad nations vowed to boost collaboration in the South Pacific region during the in-person meeting in Tokyo, as they noted that the region they had entered “a new and more complex phase in the Pacific's strategic environment.”

The meeting was held a month after China unveiled a security pact with the Solomon Islands, which has raised concerns in Australia and New Zealand.

Jaishankar Holds Talks With His NZ Counterpart

Earlier in the day, the Indian foreign minister was also hosted for bilateral consultations at the Auckland War Memorial Museum by his Kiwi counterpart Nanaia Mahuta.

In a series of tweets, Jaishankar said that both the countries were looking to collaborate on “pressing global issues including climate action, pandemics and maritime security”.

In his opening statement at a joint presser after the meeting, Jaishankar underlined that there was a “very open discussion on how India and New Zealand together will shape the larger region”.

An official readout by New Zealand’s foreign ministry said that both sides discussed opportunities to expand cooperation in the areas of climate change as well as sustainable agriculture.

Further, the statement noted that both the ministers discussed New Zealand’s “progress” in joining the International Solar Alliance (ISA), which was co-established by India and France in 2015.