Ambassador Mike Moore
Address to Centre for Australia and New Zealand Studies,
Georgetown University, Washington DC
12 April 2012
“Foreign Policy in an Interdependent World: A New Zealand Perspective”
(As prepared for delivery)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s an honour to share some thoughts with you, report on the NZ, Australian and US relationship and put it in a
historic, then global and regional context.
I do this with some trepidation. I spent the first forty years of my life trying to get into the media and have tried
ever since I was appointed trying to keep out of the media. If an ambassador is in the media, he or she is probably
doing something wrong. It’s been said that a diplomat is always precariously poised between a cliché and an
indiscretion. Staff up here remind me often, a little too often, that I’m not our chief negotiator, even less am I the
Minister.
I want to express my affection for our Aussie mates and partners. In particular I want to put on record my admiration
for Ambassador Beazley.
No one could wish for a better mate, personally and professionally.
We meet here, knowing in a few days we will recognise and honour ANZAC day, that tragic time when in fire, blood, mud
and tears we were joined together in a terrible bond at Gallipoli. From that disaster our nations were forged. Crises
and hardship don’t just build character, they reveal character.
No two nations have sailed, marched and flown further to defend freedom than the ANZACs.
There have been so many wars, emergencies and police actions where Australia and NZ have been involved.
A contingent from New South Wales, 734 strong with some New Zealanders, went to the Sudan in 1885.
In 1901 Australians were part of the occupation forces in China after the Boxer rebellion.
We both went to fight during the Boer War. We sent 6495 troops, Maori and Pakeha, the Aussies sent 16,175. 2
During the First World War, 42 percent of New Zealand males between the ages of 19 and 45 fought, with a casualty rate
of 58 percent. 40 percent of Australian males fought with a casualty rate of 68.5 percent.
Similar figures were true of the Second World War. NZ had a larger share of its GDP devoted to that war, larger
percentage of men in uniform, a higher percentage of casualties than any allied nation except Russia.
From the conflicts in Korea, Bougainville, to Vietnam, Iraq, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands, Somalia,
Rwanda, Papua New Guinea/Bougainville, Timor Leste, the Sinai, Kashmir, Cyprus, what was Rhodesia, Haiti, Lebanon, the
former Yugoslavia, you will find New Zealanders and Australians.
We have been in places and situations many Americans have never heard of. We called it an “emergency” not a war when,
with Britain and others in the 1950s, we successfully defended Malaya from the Communist insurgents. It was not called a
war but “confrontation” when a newly created Malaysia faced a threat from an anxious, belligerent Indonesia in the
1960s.
At the time of the Suez crisis, a NZ cruiser was despatched but that scrap was over before we got there.
At the time of the Falklands war, NZ sent naval vessels to the Indian Ocean… thereby relieving British ships.
We have been in wars that didn’t happen. When Lloyd George wanted to have another go at the Turks in the 1920s, NZ
quickly said, “We are in” only to discover that the British cabinet changed its mind.
Not all of this was without controversy. The NZ and Australian Labour leaders who supported the Second World War were
opposed to what they called an imperialistic First World War. Some MPs who became Cabinet Ministers had been done for
sedition, some went to prison, jailed for their pacifist beliefs Other wars divided our country as much as the US was
divided at the time. Still true. That is the nature of healthy democracies.
Because of these sacrifices, because we know that we are not isolated from great events, we in NZ have a history of
internationalism and of seeking a durable peace through engagement and international institutions.
At the League of Nations we raised the issues of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia and the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria. We were appalled at the appeasers and said so, when that was not popular to say, upsetting the great powers
of the day. Our representative at the League of Nations wanted a treaty to ban the new-fangled threat of aerial
bombardment.
We gifted a battle cruiser to the British after World War I. At the height of the Great Depression NZ gave a million
pounds for the defence of Singapore.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, and Australia’s Foreign Minister Doc Evatt argued for the rights of small
nations and against the veto powers of the Security
Council when the UN was formed. We are good citizens of the UN, we pay our dues and more and deploy our people in peace
keeping and peace making.
We know that no nation, mighty or modest, can hope to enjoy clean air, manage airlines, run a tax system, enjoy
security, grow, alleviate poverty, combat climate change or manage a fisheries regime and fight terrorism without the
co-operation of others. Thus we know that to be good nationalists, we have to be internationalists, hence our commitment
to those global institutions such as the UN, WTO and global arrangements such as the Antarctic Agreement and the law of
the sea.
I wish to speak of the US/NZ relationship. New Zealanders feel very comfortable here in the US, we are all just a few
generations away from a farm and a boat. We are nations of immigrants. We were all boat people at some time or another,
and no one came to NZ, Australia or America without a memory.
So, we feel a common heritage and trace our history back to the Magna Carta, the Chartists, the Bill of Rights, the
British Glorious Revolution, and your own revolution. Your heroes are our heroes. We too, are moved when we go to the
Lincoln or King Memorial.
We should occasionally celebrate our success, the great ideas of freedom, representative democracy, freedom of religion,
freedom from religion, the rule of law, property rights, the genius of the limited liability company, bankruptcy law,
labour rights, women’s rights, the virtues of social mobility, much of which is famously expressed in the US
Constitution and in the evolution and practice of this great experiment with justice and freedom; both personal and
economic.
We ought not to lose our nerve now when we know that more wealth has been created over the past 60 years than the rest
of human history put together. Millions have been lifted out of extreme poverty, and the more open the society the
better the outcome. The darkest places on the planet, where people are treated the worst, are the closed economies and
societies.
People, when given the choice, choose freedom in the polling place and the market space. Even after the greatest
economic recession since the Great Depression, we are coming back. Those who predicted the end of democratic capitalism
and the exhaustion of social democracy will be disappointed. The trading system did hold. Because we learn from history,
we adjust.
A mature, normal relationship is where family members can disagree, where every request is not seen as a test of
friendship and where either side can say yes and no, without ramifications.
We can be optimistic when we reflect on the substantial progress made. The relationship is the best in a generation. We
are building on years of hard work by others.
The highpoint of the past 18 months has been the visit of our Prime Minister who had a successful and productive meeting
with President Obama, and the visit to NZ of Secretary of State Clinton. The Wellington Declaration now forms the
platform for our fresh strategic partnership.
Everywhere I go, it’s often the first such meeting in a generation: the first meeting between our Minister of Defence
and the top brass in Hawaii, the first meeting a few weeks ago with top US officials in a strategic dialogue. We didn’t
have a Defence Secretary alive who had attended such a meeting.
When Labour Leader, I had the great German leader Willy Brandt to my party caucus room. He was asked by an aggressive
MP, well not quite asked. “Willy”, this MP demanded, “Why don’t you get out of NATO and get rid of the nuclear
deterrent? (or words to that effect)
“Ah NZ” he said, “I have found in a long political life that idealism increases in direct relationship to your distance
from the problem.” We don’t have one percent of the world’s population but we sure have more than one percent of the
world’s opinions.
9/11 changed everything. We are not naïve; we too are committed to the life and death struggle against the forces of
reaction and its violent medieval terrorist face forces that reject all we have learnt from and since the days of the
enlightenment. It makes no moral difference if a Kiwi is murdered in NZ or at the Twin Towers, in Madrid, Bali, the
London underground or on a Norwegian island. We lost people in each of those obscene attacks. These were attacks not
just on innocent people, but on the very idea of our civilisation.
We get it. We know our resources and influence are modest. But as always we stand with the forces of reason against the
forces of reaction. This is the rent we pay for our way of life, it is the cost of civilisation and always has been.
Whether it’s a Kiwi in charge of the fleet to combat piracy off Somalia, joint humanitarian work in the Pacific, or
maritime surveillance to check on the fisheries in our region, our Navies are working and will work together as are our
men and women in Afghanistan where we have responsibility for Bamiyan province. A policy that has been supported by
several NZ Governments.
We are not isolationists, nor are we neutral to the great events that are shaping our world. The hottest place in hell
is reserved for the neutrals. How can we be neutral or indifferent, given our values and interests to global poverty and
injustice, human rights, labour rights, women’s rights, nuclear proliferation, the law of the sea, freedom of navigation
or the fresh hopes we have for Burma?
Given our interests, we can never be passive to the opportunities offered for global and regional prosperity offered
through opening trade through the WTO and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
We cannot be neutral or passive bystanders to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the Pacific who still endure much
poverty and live in fear of climate change and see their resources under stress. For them the Pacific Islands Forum is
their leadership summit. It is their G20. In the past only two or three Americans attended, but at the last Forum over
50 Americans participated, and we welcome the US territories, in all their historic, complex, constitutional
configurations with the US, becoming observers to that body.
Here I must pay tribute to the energy and commitment of the Assistant Secretary of State, Dr Kurt Campbell, and thank
him and his team. Kurt made an historic visit through some of the Pacific Islands and was deeply moved and troubled by a
number of things. We are working together to resolve some of them, not the least being the number of unexploded World
War II ordinances that litter the beautiful beaches, green forests and lonely, lovely atolls in our region.
Like other nations, we are proud of our independent foreign policy, like other nations we will make our decisions based
on our obligations, values and interests. Having said that, we don’t live in a vacuum. Nations are not NGOs. You cannot
project and protect your values and interest without the cooperation and understanding of others. This has always been
so. Perhaps it’s more so now given our greater interdependence in a globalised world.
Small nations need rules-based systems more than great powers - the law is the great equaliser. We all know, to our
great cost, the dangers posed by the soft option of isolationism, and the dangers inherent in both an economic and
political sense. The two are intertwined, and economic isolationism makes us all poorer and inevitably leads to
something more dangerous and dreadful. Globalisation is not new. Its not a policy dreamed up in Wall Street or at Davos.
Globalisation ought not to be demonised or idealised. It will not be stopped any more than you can stop men thinking.
There have been dark times in history when it has stalled. The great depression was made more lethal, prolonged and
deadly because of protectionism and isolationism. From that great reaction came the twin tyrannies of the last century,
Fascism and Marxism. Inward looking, tribal, nationalistic, racist and murderous.
But a world without walls cannot be a world without rules, standards and values A market without rules, standards and
values is not a free market but a black market. We fear deglobalisation, which is what a recession or depression really
means. This is another reason, beyond commercial self -interest that NZ places such an ambitious premium on the Doha
Development round and a successful, evolving WTO. For those who are too idealistic about globalisation and the death of
history, I commend a book written by Norman Angell in 1909, entitled “Europe’s Optical Illusion.” He argued that Europe
was so economically integrated war was impossible. He wrote “new economic factors clearly prove the inanity of war..”
and of “the commercial disaster, financial ruin and individual suffering of a European war..”
“Why, “he wrote, “if Germany and Britain went to war, British insurance companies would be required to compensate the
Kaiser for his sunken tonnage.” His small book was translated into 22 languages and sold over a million copies. He was
knighted and won the Nobel Prize for peace.
War is not inevitable but neither is peace.
Patient, prudent, principled, predictable engagement at every level is the only golden rule. Isolationism both political
and economic breeds the conditions for suspicion and opens the possibilities for misunderstandings which can prove
dangerous.
Like others in our region we welcome the US signing the Treaty of Amity and co-operation, joining the EAS, and pursuing
a balanced diplomacy and engagement with China. How can we be neutral and indifferent, given our interests and values,
to engaging and encouraging our partners and friends in China to play a leadership role in global affairs and global
governance commensurate with her history, culture, growth and power.
The China/American relationship is the central and most profound relationship of our age, it will impact on everyone
everywhere. 6
We have an excellent and growing relationship with China.
We are proud that New Zealand is the first developed country to have a free trade deal with China, and our experience is
positive.
We were the first developed nation to agree to China’s condition to join the WTO. The first to accord them market
economy status.
The highlight of my time as Director General of the WTO was helping China navigate its way into the WTO as a full
member.
I get too much credit for this in China, but I don’t care.
Given our values, interests and limitations, we hope we are playing and can continue to play, a modest role by finding
ways where we can work collectively together.
In my reports to my capital I speak of my experience here in DC. At every level of contact, at every level of
government, colleagues speak of engagement with China. No adult talks of containment. It misreads the past, misreads the
present and misreads the future.
You can no more contain China than you can contain the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean King Canute exposed that theory
some time ago. It’s a throwback to the Cold War. We don’t fear a strong, growing and prosperous China. And for those who
fear China’s growth, let them think about the harm to our economies and our region of a slow growth, fractured and
fractious China.
We see stability, progress, growth and jobs with a strong China, a strong India Japan, Europe and Russia. And of course
a strong, confident, growing, engaged US.
We have confidence in the future of the US and reject those who speak of an American decline.
Let’s look at the facts.
US share of global GDP is just about where it was in the 1970’s. Even if military expenditure slows, the US still will
be spending more on defence than the next 17 countries put together. Forty percent of all university spending is here in
the US; 30 of the top 50 universities are in the US, 70 percent of Nobel Prize winners live in the US. We celebrated
with you the Korean, Colombian and Panama free trade agreements. We were excited by the President’s commitment made at
APEC for the Trans-Pacific Partnership – the TPP - when he called for an ambitious deal to be on the table this year.
The words “comprehensive” and “eliminating tariffs” were used by Leaders. These are big ambitious words. We too are
ambitious for a high quality 21st century deal. We too want to take the jack boot of regulations, red tape and
compliance costs off enterprise, to speed business and create jobs and know that its small business more than big
business that needs predictable, transparent rules of engagement.
This will not be easy, but we know issues of IP, transparent rules for State Owned Enterprises and understandings on
labour and the environmental intersections are a necessity. But to address 21st century subjects we also have to finally
resolve 20th century issues. TPP has always been an expansionist model. It started with just two countries. Already the
group of nations involved, collectively represent America’s third biggest trading destination. We want other friends to
join up to its high ambitions.
We too, are anxious not to lose momentum or to lower ambitions. This will require courage, stamina and vision. Boldness
is our friend.
Let’s hope we don’t go into deadlock over the definition of catfish, old problems of textiles, sugar or dairy, and lets
concentrate on the future, because the past isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We are all bigger than this. Among our many
mutual domestic problems it’s the employment of the young, those locked outside, their faces pressed against the window
that worries our leaders the most. For us the future is to be faced, not feared.
I want to end with a note of thanks. 2012 for us is an historic year, its 70 years since the US Marines came to NZ.
This year we will welcome the US Marines back home to say thank you, to pay down this large debt of honour. If any
American has to pay for a beer that week, I will be ashamed of Kiwis.
My report therefore to my Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade is that our relationship is in fine
shape, and I know they would want me to thank the American and Australian friends here for all you did to help us when
the earthquake hit Christchurch.
ends