Source: New Zealand Government
[Speech to the Ananta Aspen Centre, New Delhi, India]
Namaste, good afternoon.
Ms Indrani Bagchi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the chance to speak with you today. Over the past 18 months, New Zealand and India have been working hard to deepen the excellent relations developing between us.
It’s great to be back in New Delhi, just over year since our last visit. Last night, we were able to take stock with Minister Jaishankar of the progress New Zealand and India have made in strengthening relations in recent times, while discussing a broad range of challenging issues facing our region and our world.
We must, at the outset, pay tribute to Minister Jaishankar. He is one of the world’s leading statesmen, and it is an absolute pleasure to be working with him on this important project of cementing New Zealand-India relations.
This afternoon, we would like to outline for you why and how New Zealand seeks stronger relations with India, in the context of our broader approach to foreign policy in these uncertain, disordered times.
We will describe New Zealand’s outward face: how our small state of 5.2 million people sees its place in, and interacts with, the rest of the world. We will outline New Zealand’s foreign policy, which was reset after the new Coalition Government came into office in late 2023. We wish you to understand our priorities as well as our national values. And we will describe our determination to do more in, and with South and South East Asia, and especially with the great nation that is India.
Who we are
First and foremost, New Zealand is a small collection of islands in the Southwest Pacific, just north of the penguins. The original discovery and settlement of the Pacific Islands, including New Zealand, is one of the most remarkable stories of exploration in human history.
Historians have compared it with space exploration as both were journeys into the unknown. But Pacific navigation is arguably even more remarkable because the canoes that set out from the Asian landmass knew not where they would land, nor when, nor indeed if they would find any new territory.
But find land they did, as they forged new identities and societies on atolls and islands that today stand as a testament to their imagination, endurance and a resilience to overcome the formidable challenges of distance, geography, and resource scarcity.
So, New Zealand is a Pacific Island country – we just sailed and paddled further – and we are linked with our Pacific family by geography, history, culture, politics, demography and indeed DNA.
We are also, self-evidently, a maritime nation. The Pacific Ocean represents 31 percent of the world’s surface. The Indian Ocean accounts for another 20 percent, so the Indo-Pacific accounts for about half the world’s surface, meaning protecting sea lanes and freedom of navigation is crucial for both India and New Zealand.
New Zealand is also a migrant nation, one of the most multicultural countries anywhere. Seventeen percent of our people trace their origins to Asia, including six percent who have Indian ancestry. That diversity strengthens us at home – and connects us to the region that shapes our prosperity. Seven of our ten largest export destinations are in Asia. That is no coincidence. It is the reality of a deeply interconnected future.
We are also a deeply democratic people, with New Zealand being one of only nine countries who have enjoyed democracy continuously since 1854.
We are proud to have granted our earliest people, the Māori, the franchise all the way back in 1867, and to have been the first nation on earth to give women the vote, in 1893. We were also proud, when visiting your new parliament last year, to see New Zealand-made carpet adorning India’s magnificent new chamber in the world’s largest democracy.
New Zealanders, as an artefact of our geographical isolation from the world’s great populations centres, have always been outward-looking people, curious about the world around them. Indeed, many of our most iconic New Zealanders have done their best work outside our shores.
Lord Ernest Rutherford, who split the atom. Mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who first climbed Mount Everest with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, and whose legacy we were able to honour in Nepal this week. And, more latterly, cricketer John Wright, who coached India’s national team between 2000-2005; and, lest we forget, while on the subject of cricket, the New Zealand team which stunned the cricketing world in Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai last year, are just a few of our peak Kiwi performers overseas.
But, as our cricket team showed, the New Zealand character is forged not by a never-ending pipeline of natural talent – something India is blessed with – but by working very hard to hone the skills needed to compete on the global stage and to make the most of limited resources, whatever the endeavour.
We push ourselves to work harder because New Zealand has understood these past 80 years, as a small state geographically isolated from the great landmasses of Asia, Europe and the Americas, that only through the conduct of a highly active foreign policy can we advance our national interests, defend our region, and make it more prosperous.
Foreign Policy Reset
Distinguished guests, in February 2024 Cabinet endorsed a significant foreign policy reset.
The six pillars of our foreign policy reset are as follows:
First, we are significantly increasing our focus and resources applied to South and Southeast Asia.
Second, we have renewed and reinvigorated meaningful engagement with our traditional and likeminded partners. Beginning, as always, with our one formal ally and indispensable partner, Australia, which we visited again just late last week.
Third, we are actively sustaining a deeper focus on the Pacific Islands region, bolstering development and security collaboration in response to regional needs and crises.
Fourth, we are carefully targeting our multilateral engagement to global and transboundary issues, working with close partners to defend and preserve core principles of international law that underpin our security and prosperity.
Fifth, we are supporting new groupings that advance and defend our interests and capabilities. The IP4, where we work closely with Australia, South Korea, Japan and NATO, is an example of this new support.
Sixth, we are working hard promoting our goal of seriously lifting New Zealand’s export value over the next decade.
The six pillars of the Government’s Foreign Policy Reset are underpinned by three key concepts:
The realism that informs the Government’s foreign policy.
Our view of the crucial role that diplomacy needs to play in our troubled world.
And our unshakeable belief that small states matter and that all states are equal.
In fashioning foreign policy responses the realist tendency is to err on the side of prudence. That is, we are careful in what we say, and when and how we say it. In conditions of great uncertainty and disorder, such as we are currently experiencing, prudence is a both a logical and necessary guiding principle for a small state like New Zealand.
We see our responsibility to the New Zealand people, in conducting foreign policy, as making cool-headed calculations of the country’s own strengths and weaknesses as we fashion our responses to events large or small that impact upon New Zealand’s interests.
For a small state like New Zealand, the role of diplomacy is a crucial instrument of our foreign policy. In our complex geostrategic environment never has effective diplomacy been more needed. In the 18 months since returning for a third time as Foreign Minister we’ve spoken widely with colleagues across the globe. We’ve visited 45 countries, several more than once, met with well over 100 Presidents, Prime Ministers, Deputy Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, and had over 400 political engagements.
Summing up those discussions in our National Statement to the United Nations last year, we said it has never been more apparent just how much diplomacy and the tools of statecraft matter in our troubled world.
Since war and instability is everyone’s calamity, diplomacy is the business of us all. We have observed that at this moment in time the ability to talk with, rather than at, each other has never been more needed.
Those who share our values, and even those who do not, gain from understanding each other’s position, even when we cannot agree. From understanding comes opportunity and from diplomacy comes compromise, the building block of better relations between nations. We said we need more diplomacy, more engagement, more compromise.
As Winston Churchill also said in his later years, “meeting jaw-to-jaw is better than war.”
The inherent tensions and imbalances in the global order – between the desire for a rules-based order that protects small states against aggression, and the unjustified exercise of power by certain Great Powers – have only grown over the last past eight decades.
Yet small states matter now as much as they did then. New Zealand holds the foundational belief that all states are equal and that our voices matter as much as more powerful states.
Adopting a prudential approach to our diplomacy also means not reacting to everything that happens around you. We are more interested in understanding and anticipating the trend lines that are apparent over much longer periods and how they manifest during our time at the wheel.
The broadening India-New Zealand relationship
Which brings us to the India-New Zealand relationship. India’s trendlines are nothing short of stunning. India’s growth story is well known to us, and it is breathtaking: the fastest-growing economy in the G20 and on track to be the world’s third-largest economy in the coming years.
India’s middle class is now almost half a billion strong. In the last decade alone, 250 million Indians have been lifted out of poverty. India’s aviation industry has soared, with the number of airports more than doubling to 157, and a new highway network covering 95,000 kilometres – enough to drive between New Zealand and India eight times. These are not mere statistics; they represent an extraordinary economic transformation.
Globally, India has cemented itself as a key player. Hosting the G20 summit in 2023 and landing a spacecraft on the moon’s South Pole two years ago, are testaments to its growing influence.
For New Zealand, India presents immense untapped potential. Despite India’s economic scale, it remains only our 12th largest trading partner, accounting for just 1.5 percent of our exports.
We are determined to change that. Our strengths – from food and beverage products to agriculture, forestry, horticulture, education, and tourism – are world-class. And our innovation in areas like outer space and renewable energy will find a welcoming partner in India.
Early in this term we clearly expressed our intent to build a deeper and broader relationship with India. But, as Mahatma Gandhi said, “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.” So we have followed through with practical action to broaden our relationship.
We have sought to increase the tempo and seniority of engagements between our politicians. Our first overseas visit outside our home region of Australia and Pacific was to India, where we visited both Gujarat and New Delhi in March 2024. The Trade Minister has visited India five times.
In March his year, Prime Minister Luxon visited India on one of New Zealand’s largest-ever Prime Ministerial missions. And we enthusiastically welcomed India’s President in August 2024, and, just recently, the Minister of State for External Affairs, Shri Pabitra Margherita.
Since the Foreign Policy Reset, we’ve made concrete strides. We’ve launched negotiations on a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement – a breakthrough in our economic relationship. But even before that milestone we had put in place measures to deepen the economic relationship, with new arrangements on horticulture, forestry, and education also recently finalised.
Additionally, we have seen a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Air New Zealand and Air India to explore a codeshare agreement on 16 routes across India, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. This will make travel between our nations easier, boosting tourism, education, and business connections.
But our relationship with India goes well beyond economic ties. It extends to defence and security – a priority for New Zealand in the Indo-Pacific. In an emerging multipolar world, India is evolving into a geopolitical giant, an indispensable security actor in both regional and global spheres.
During a time of great uncertainty, instability and disorder, we have taken steps to work more closely on matters of defence and security with India. A recently signed Defence Cooperation Arrangement will facilitate closer links between our militaries.
Meanwhile, we have taken practical steps to work together more closely. The New Zealand Navy is leading Combined Task Force 150, charged with securing trade routes and countering terrorism, smuggling, and piracy in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
India’s involvement in this mission, as the Deputy Command of the Task Force, underscores the growing closeness of our defence ties. The taskforce has already had very real impact, disrupting the trade of $600 million worth of illegal drugs so far.
With tensions rising in the Indo-Pacific, it is crucial for New Zealand to work hand-in-hand with India and other like-minded partners to ensure the region remains free and open, with all nations respecting the rules that underpin peace and stability.
India makes a significant contribution to upholding the rules-based international system on which we rely, via its growing influence in multilateral forums.
In addition, India has been a leader in promoting solar energy worldwide. We were pleased to sign up to the India and France-led International Solar Alliance, which now has over 100 member countries. And New Zealand has endorsed India’s candidature for permanent membership in a reformed UN Security Council.
Turning to our growing people-to-people links, Prime Minister Modi has spoken often of the Indian diaspora in New Zealand, calling it a “living bridge” between our countries.
That is certainly true – the vibrant Indian community in New Zealand is contributing immeasurably to our society.
Their economic contribution is enormous, with estimates from six years ago suggesting it was worth around NZ$10 billion. We have no doubt it has grown since.
Of course, our partnership is also about more than economics and politics. It’s about people, and there’s no greater expression of that than sport. Cricket, of course, is a key element of our relationship – we will soon mark 100 years of sporting ties with India.
But our sporting connections go beyond cricket. New Zealand and India have recently signed a Sports Memorandum of Cooperation, paving the way for new collaborations in high-performance sports, technology, research, and people exchanges.
When you consider the range of measures outlined today across these key areas, it becomes clear that India and New Zealand are building a truly broad-based relationship.
Concluding Remarks
In concluding this speech on New Zealand’s foreign policy and our approach to India, and before taking your questions, let us briefly reinforce our key messages here this afternoon.
First, while we are operating under severe conditions of uncertainty and the world faces extremely difficult economic and security challenges, New Zealand is pursuing a Foreign Policy Reset to help secure our place in the world.
Second, the foreign policy of this New Zealand Government is unashamedly realist because in conditions of uncertainty prudence is preferable to pious platitudes when it comes to protecting New Zealand’s and the Indo-Pacific’s immediate and longer-term economic and security interests.
Third, our broadening bilateral relations with India are very important to us. New Zealand is deeply committed to South and South East Asia in general, and India in particular. We are taking concrete actions to make good on our commitment to India and the region, across political engagement, defence and security, trade and economics, people and cultural, and multilateral connections.
Ultimately, there’s plenty in our relationship to benefit both New Zealand and India, as we work more closely together on defence and security, on sharing technology and human capital and in cooperating economically. India can rely upon New Zealand’s word and the actions that support them. And we are in it for the long haul.
Thank you.