(Bloomberg) -- New Zealand is a long way from deciding whether to join the second pillar of the Aukus security pact, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.

There is a precondition necessary before any final decision can be made — the existing Aukus partners must want New Zealand to participate, Peters said in a speech Wednesday in Wellington. If that precondition is met, New Zealand would then need to want to join, he said. 

“At that future point we will need to carefully weigh up the economic and security benefits and costs of any decision about whether participating in Pillar 2 is in the national interest,” he said. “The government is a long way from this point of being able to make such a decision.”

Aukus is a security partnership signed by Australia, the UK and the US in September 2021, designed to boost all three countries’ defense and research capabilities at a time of growing competition with China. Pillar Two focuses on research collaboration in areas of strategic significance such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and has attracted the interest of New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

Peters said officials are working with foreign counterparts to better understand what opportunities and benefits Pillar 2’s advanced technologies may offer New Zealand. It must also examine what it might offer, or be expected to offer, its prospective partners in return, he said. 

As New Zealand makes its assessment, largest trading partner China has expressed concerns about Wellington signing up to Aukus. The nation wants to avoid the trade reprisals Australia suffered when it angered Beijing in the wake of the pandemic.

“We are disquieted by any potential breakdown in foreign policy bipartisanship over Pillar 2,” Peters said. “Bipartisanship in foreign policy is not a luxury for our small state, it’s a necessary condition for advancing our sovereign interests effectively. We urge them to hold their nerve.”

Read More: New Zealand Expects China’s Respect As it Explores Joining Aukus

Peters also hit back at critics who say that joining Aukus would be abandoning New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in favor of moving closer to western allies such as the US.

“Their conception of our independent foreign policy has always carried a strand of anti-Americanism, so being independent means for them saying no to the US,” he said. “New Zealand’s independent foreign policy does not, and never has meant we are a non-aligned nation.” 

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