New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China.
A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.”
New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific region and the potential threat it poses to their national security. In January, New Zealand also halted new development funding to the Kiribati, an island in Micronesia.
Photo: AFP
We “will also not consider significant new funding until the Cook Islands Government takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust,” the spokesperson said. “New Zealand hopes that steps will be taken swiftly to address New Zealand’s concerns so that this support can be resumed as soon as possible.”
The Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration said in a statement the country is committed to restoring its high-trust relationship with New Zealand and appreciated the funding support received from Wellington.
News of the freeze comes as New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is in China and ahead of a meeting today with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Premier Li Qiang (李強).
Luxon is expected to raise China’s deepening ties with the Cook Islands and New Zealand’s concerns about Beijing’s behavior in the Pacific region.
“It’s an issue between the Cook Islands and New Zealand,” Luxon told a news conference in Shanghai yesterday, when asked whether Beijing could be unhappy with the decision. “In this case, it’s a comprehensive partnership with China, but our issue is actually with the Cook Islands not being transparent about what it’s negotiating on.”
The Cook Islands is a self-governing country in free association with New Zealand, and Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens. New Zealand commits to defend the South Pacific nation if asked, and the two countries consult on security, defense and foreign policy issues.
Over the past three years, New Zealand has provided NZ$194.2 million to the Cook Islands through a development program, government data showed.
In February, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown visited China and signed a strategic partnership spanning areas from deep-sea mining to education scholarships, but excluding security ties.
New Zealand said the Cook Islands did not properly consult on the documents ahead of the signing, thereby breaching the arrangement between the two countries.
Anna Powles, associate professor in security studies at New Zealand’s Massey University, said that using aid as leverage is “punitive and shortsighted,” and will not be regarded positively by other members in the Pacific Islands community.
Previous punitive measures such as sanctions on Fiji following a 2006 coup had little impact, Powles said.
“It also opens the door further for China, and of course China is part of the equation,” she said.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS