Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta meets Chinese foreign affairs director Wang Yi in Beijing, China. File Photo / China Foreign Ministry / Stuff
Foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta’s use of te ao Māori principles in foreign policy with China is the subject of a new academic paper published in a prestigious international journal that signposts her 'radically different' approach.
It comes amid Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' meeting with President Xi Jinping in China this week - and the New Zealand leader's notable initial omission to highlight either the unique relationship between te iwi Māori and China or the Māori leaders in his delegation, accompanied as they were by Te Matatini winners Te Kapa Haka o Te Whānau-ā-Apanui.
Co-authored by Dr Nicholas Ross Smith of Canterbury University and Māori academic Bonnie Holster (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Rangiwewehi), a masters of international trade student at Victoria University. The paper is one of the first contributions to global international relations literature based on a te ao Māori perspective.
The paper, New Zealand's 'Maori foreign policy' and China: a case of instrumental relationality?, is newly published in the International Affairs journal by Oxford University Press, and examines Mahuta's use of a kaupapa Māori foreign policy based on four tikanga Māori: manaakitanga (hospitality), whanaungatanga (connectedness), mahi tahi and kotahitanga (unity through collaboration), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship and the protection of intergenerational wellbeing).
“Using te ao Māori principles in our foreign policy provides a fundamental difference in how we see the world,” Dr Smith said in Wednesday's release.
“It takes a relational and intergenerational approach that offers a more complex and sophisticated way of looking at these relationships, which is radically very different from how many countries approach geopolitics.”
More ambitious option
By assessing the communications of Mahuta and other officials, Dr Smith and Holster have found New Zealand has been able to develop a mature relationship with China through the use of a kaupapa Māori framework "when other countries have been pushing back".
“There is increasing competition between the United States and China, with an emerging fear that we will be forced to choose a side,” Smith said.
“Our predicament is that while we have strong hard security links with the United States, China is easily our most important trading partner.
"Unlike Australia, which has taken a conventional balancing approach by deepening ties with the US at the expense of its relationship with China, by moving towards a more relational view based on te ao Māori principles, we have arguably been able to choose a more ambitious and independent option of attempting to maintain good relationships with all.
Risk of isolation
“The challenge with this is it does make us an outlier, particularly in the Five Eyes security alliance, and there is the risk that this approach may isolate and put us in a vulnerable position,” he said.
Dr Smith added that while the upcoming general election might result in a change of foreign minister, he was confident aspects of the Māori foreign policy would continue.
“Nanaia Mahuta has undoubtedly been a key driver of this, so a change in personnel could see us revert to a more conventional foreign policy approach. However, there is also an evolutionary aspect that reflects New Zealand's growing embrace of te ao Māori perspectives, together with the continued role of te Tiriti o Waitangi in public policy-making, which I believe is here to stay,” he said.