New Zealand and the South Pacific

Abstract

Over the past two decades, New Zealanders have begun increasingly to identify the South Pacific as their home region. The troubles that hit the South Pacific in the 1980s accelerated and deepened this process. Official and political interest in the region has increased commensurate with its perceived greater salience in Wellington. The large number of New Zealand diplomatic posts scattered throughout the Pacific Islands facilitate more frequent visits to the region by officials and politicians, the cultivation of personal relationships with island leaders, and the maintenance of a closer watching brief over the region generally. New Zealand's South Pacific diplomacy in the 1990S is based on recognizing the diversity that exists in the region, on a multidimensional conception of security, on regionalism, on a responsive rather than a coercive approach to the challenges confronting the Pacific Islands, and on appropriate responses to those challenges. These propositions are demonstrated on security, economic, political, and environmental dimensions.