Rift highlights drivers of foreign aid
The diplomatic rift flowing from the last-minute cancellation of a scheduled meeting between President Maamau of Kiribati and New Zealand's Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters, demonstrates how personalities and misunderstanding can often drive foreign policy and aid.
As AUT Law School senior lecturer Sione Tekiteki writes for RNZ, we are currently seeing power plays from the US - but it is surprising from New Zealand. For years, New Zealand has been careful to engage in the Pacific by the "principles of understanding, friendship, mutual benefit, collective impact, and sustainability".
For all the talk on the intensifying geopolitics playing out in the Pacific, there remains a lot to be understood of Pacific context, and Pacific leaders. Drawing on his experiences serving at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Sione argues that a Pacific leader's public image can be very different to who they are as a person.
Further, Pacific nations do not always rationalise decisions in the same manner as developed nations, nor do they have the same capacity to engage in strategic diplomacy.
We are seeing the Trump administration pause its global aid, says Sione, advising it would be a mistake for New Zealand (so called "members of the family") to follow a similar posture. Firstly, the idea that respect is owed to New Zealand because of the amount of aid it gives sends a negative message to Pacific nations. At the same time there are better ways of resolving "justifiable" concerns outside of the public eye. No doubt this issue will be resolved diplomatically, but personal relationships are much harder to amend.
While a lot has been written on the neocolonial nature, and the politicisation of aid in the Pacific, and personality politics has always existed - everything just seems more brazen these days.
Read the full article on the RNZ website