(Bloomberg) -- New Zealand’s top soldier said he’s concerned about China’s increasing presence in the South Pacific and warned that the nation’s armed forces need to be ready for any eventuality.
“I haven’t seen the world or the region in this kind of state, and that concerns me,” Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Tony Davies told a parliamentary committee Tuesday in Wellington. “At some point we need to be prepared to make decisions which could see our sailors, soldiers and aviators going into harm’s way to protect our interests.”
New Zealand along with Australia and the US were shocked when the Solomon Islands announced in early 2022 that it had signed a security agreement with Beijing. Wellington is seeking to deepen its ties with like-minded western nations but in doing so runs the risk of antagonizing China, its biggest trading partner.
“We’ve seen a far greater presence by China in the Pacific, in the southwest Pacific,” Davies said.
It recently sent what he described as its most capable warship — a Renhai-class guided-missile cruiser — on a visit to Vanuatu, and in July sent a destroyer to attend a navy anniversary in Tonga. In October it conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test that splashed down near French Polynesia.
“The temperature is going up in terms of the challenges that the world and our region in the Indo-Pacific is facing,” he said. “That worries me and it should. Making sure we are prepared and ready for that is three-quarters of my day and night, every night.”
New Zealand’s concerns come as the government plans to increase defense spending to replace aging machinery and deepen ties with traditional partners who expect it to pull its weight. The current appropriation amounts to only about 1% of gross domestic product but ministers say it needs to rise toward NATO’s guidance of 2%.
Brooke Barrington, chief executive of the Ministry of Defence, told the committee that New Zealand’s strategic position “is sharply deteriorating.”
“Hot spots are becoming a good deal hotter and a number of those hot spots are in our own hemisphere,” he said. “And we are increasingly seeing the securitization of the Pacific by countries who are not of the Pacific.”
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