Mahuta’s trip entails meetings but no big announcements

The foreign minister visited seven countries during her first foray overseas, where she got a warm welcome from officials if not always from international media, writes

After 12 months as foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta has finally gone overseas. Over the past two weeks, the minister has visited seven countries, participating in events at the Dubai World Expo, speaking to a foreign policy forum in Indonesia, and having face-to-face meetings with government officials, including the United States Secretary of State.

At every turn, she has restated well-known New Zealand positions on the importance of a global rulesbased order and reiterated that New Zealand wants a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

On the thorniest issue of all – China – she delivered carefully calibrated messages of concern.

The trip has been a crucial exercise for a government that prides itself on its commitment to multilateralism, yet has had very little in-person multilateral engagement given that Covid-19 restrictions made travel difficult.

‘‘There is no substitute for actually getting on the roads, meeting your counterparts and talking about the issues of the day,’’ said Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.

Mahuta’s appointment as foreign minister after the Labour Party won the October 2020 election was a surprise to many. She has no experience in foreign policy, and she also received another enormous portfolio – local government – in addition to her responsibilities in the Mā ori caucus.

The first indigenous person and the first woman to hold the role, Mahuta has said she wants to bring a Mā ori world view to it.

But how that would play out on a world stage has been somewhat of a guessing game as she has been confined to New Zealand and has largely been focused on the sweeping Three Waters reforms.

Insiders estimate that she spends about half of her time on local government issues such as Three Waters and about 10 per cent on Mā ori caucus issues, leaving a maximum of 40 per cent of her time for foreign policy. She did not attend the United Nations General Assembly in September – an official attended as New Zealand’s representative – and did not even visit Australia or the Cook Islands while the travel bubbles were open.

Mahuta made her first visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a 10-minute walk from Parliament, only the week before she departed for overseas.

While Mahuta’s relative lack of bandwidth for foreign affairs has frustrated analysts at home, she has had a warm welcome overseas.

Glaser said the US has been keen to touch base with New Zealand on issues including China, supply chain resilience, the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia.

‘‘It is always really good to reconnect, to have officials sit down in person and talk about the challenges and opportunities, especially where there is so much taking place in the world.’’

The US leg of the trip included a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken – and a two-minute and 10-second webcast where they delivered prepared statements; a discussion with Kurt Campbell, the

White House co-ordinator for the Indo-Pacific; and a meeting with USAID administrator Samantha Power. The fact that senior officials took time to meet Mahuta in the days before the Thanksgiving holiday was a positive sign, a number of commentators said.

It comes after New Zealand was left in the dark about the Aukus defence pact until the night before it occurred, and out of a meeting on Afghanistan. The omissions raised questions about New Zealand’s standing in the world.

Even so, much international media interest in Mahuta’s trip has been perfunctory. For example, coverage in Indonesia has largely been limited to short articles based on the statements issued by the governments, and her meeting with her counterpart in Singapore didn’t get a mention in the main newspaper, The Straits Times.

CNN, however, did an interview with the minister covering a number of topics including the country’s Covid response.

Van Jackson, a senior lecturer

in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington who served in the US Department of Defence during the Obama Administration, says it’s unlikely that a first trip overseas by a foreign minister is going to be a game changer.

‘‘It’s much more likely that you are going to gaffe, and so the fact that you haven’t seen much in the way of critical reporting is probably a good sign of success,’’ he said.

A key emphasis of Mahuta’s tenure as foreign minister has been a focus on indigenous people having a voice in foreign policy. She spoke about this at Te Aratini Festival of Indigenous and Tribal Ideas at the Dubai Expo.

Clayton Kimpton, New Zealand’s commissioner-general to Expo 2020, said the minister’s speech had been incredibly powerful and the panel she had been on was well received.

Her visit had put New Zealand front of mind with the United Arab Emirates officials she met, he said.

Much of the trip was about renewing ties in person with key countries while elevating New Zealand’s profile.

One of the more significant events of the trip was a speech in Jakarta where she warned of ‘‘rising nationalism’’ in the IndoPacific and condemned military rule in Myanmar and China’s claim over the South China Sea.

Dino Patti Djalal, a former Indonesian ambassador who moderated the minister’s talk at the forum, said it was important to have a New Zealand official address the Indonesian crowd because it had been a long time since that had happened.

‘‘We are glad to hear the geopolitical view of New Zealand, which is quite important because Indonesian foreign policy will always place New Zealand somehow in a geopolitical equation,’’ he said.

Mahuta spoke a lot about local wisdom – matauranga Mā ori – which he’d found to be a change from what other government officials usually say.

‘‘It is a refreshing thing, because in Indonesia local wisdom is a big deal as well,’’ Patti Djalal said.