Actually Or Potentially Within Reach: the Place of China in New Zealand’S Grand Strategy 1965-1972
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Actually or Potentially Within Reach: The Place of China in New Zealand’s Grand Strategy 1965-1972 By David Belgrave A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington 2016 ABSTRACT In 1965 New Zealand was an active member of alliances designed to contain the People’s Republic of China in South East Asia. Late the previous year, the Defence Council had warned Cabinet that New Zealand could be at war with China and/or Indonesia in six months. Less than seven years later New Zealand recognised China, as Britain and the US military presences were exiting from South East Asia. These events bookend a radical reshaping of New Zealand’s defence policies and its attitude towards China. The existing scholarship on New Zealand’s Cold War defence policies has underemphasised the role of China in New Zealand’s grand strategy and the scholarship on Sino-New Zealand relations has also largely ignored defence policy. This thesis uses recently released files from the Ministry of Defence to provide new insight into the construction of China as a threat during the mid-1960s and the challenges faced in meeting that perceived threat. New Zealand’s Forward Defence policy was one designed to contain China and Beijing-supported revolutionary groups in South East Asia. This strategy was predicated on active British or American support for containment. SEATO and ANZAM provided the basis of New Zealand war planning and day-to-day operations in Asia respectively. With the British decision to withdraw from South East Asia and the American quagmire in Vietnam, New Zealand had to reassess its position in South East Asia as containment of China was no longer thought possible. The need for a containment strategy was based upon a conceptualisation of China as a growing and hostile power. This view saw China as eventually developing the means to dominate South East Asia and threaten Australasia directly as Japan had done in 1942. This perception of China changed with the emergence of the Cultural Revolution. New Zealand officials watched from Hong Kong as violence and mass political disorder challenged established sources of authority. They took the view that Mao was in direct command of the revolution and was placing limits on it. The revolution destroyed the notion that China was a growing power bent on external expansion. As Mao moved to dampen the revolution, Beijing moved to re-establish its foreign policy and improve its links with the outside world. Both the means and ends of New Zealand’s grand strategy changed at the same time. New Zealand and its great power allies abandoned the containment project just as views on China shifted. From the end of the 1960s, New Zealand’s Forward Defence efforts ceased to be focused on the containment of China and moved to achieving much more limited goals. New security arrangements were developed to replace the AMDA, ANZAM, and SEATO pacts. The Five Power Defence Arrangements would provide the basis of New Zealand’s defence 2 commitment to South East Asia with only limited assistance from Britain and without China as a significant threat. It is in this context that New Zealand made the decision to recognise China. New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake long maintained the view that the PRC should enter the United Nations and be recognised by New Zealand, provided the position of Taiwan was preserved. Once the effort to keep Taiwan in the UN was lost, New Zealand moved slowly toward recognition. However, it would take the election of the Third Labour Government for recognition to occur. This move was part of an international trend towards official relations with Beijing, but for New Zealand, the shift was greater as Wellington had moved from seeing China as a growing military threat to a state with which New Zealand could have an official dialogue. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would firstly like to thank my supervisors Robert Ayson and David Capie. They have shown an immense amount of faith in me. Rob, as my primary supervisor, has been extremely generous with his time and has been endlessly positive, reassuring, and inspiring. I thank them both for the exceptional supervision I have received. The life of a graduate student is always eased by great administrators. Thankfully, I have had the joy of having Philippa Race, Florence Baggett, and Jonette Crysell assist me through the university processes, as well as be wonderful generally. I would like to thank the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations. I have received significant encouragement from all members of staff, and the school was crucial in obtaining the scholarships I received. I have felt welcome and included amongst members of all the school’s staff and students in every discipline. Gerald Hensley, Chris Elder, and Doug Law all have generously given me their time and provided important firsthand insights into their work in Foreign Affairs. It is their work and the work of their colleagues and predecessors that made this research worth undertaking. This research would never have been possible without access to files. For this I thank John Crawford and Tony Wilson at NZDF. Their assistance was vital in accessing the newly declassified files which made this thesis what it is. I’d also like to thank Neil Robertson, Jacques Bancilhon, and Demi Kirkpatrick at MFAT for assisting me in obtaining access to their ministry’s files. Of course the great work of Archives New Zealand and the National Archives of Australia must also be acknowledged. They always try to make things easier for researchers. The work of New Zealand’s defence historians, in particular Ian McGibbon, Chris Pugsley, Damien Fenton, and Raberto Rabel has been a source of great inspiration and this research would not have been possible without their writings to build from. I’d like to thank Joe Burton, Jana von Stein, and Wenwen Shen for giving me a stimulating class to tutor. I learnt a huge amount about the art of lecturing International Relations from all three. Equally important were the wonderful students I tutored. Their fresh perspectives and impressive essays made me look forward to every tutorial. For putting up with me as a flatmate I’d like to thank Alan Stenson, Emily Ashill, Tama Nuttall, Clark Stevenson, Tim Stevens, Nadège Vettard, and Olivia Hodgson. They made Wellington a great place to live. Of course my time in Wellington wouldn’t have been half as much fun without Charles Wilson, Louise Kotzé, and Hillary Reid providing incalculable amounts of coffee, chips, good times, and welcome distractions. Other welcome distractions were Lilly, Frances, Missy, and Kima who provided important four-legged company. Great thanks to Kelly Hicks and Keira Stephenson for their valuable last-minute proof reading. An all-important thank you to my parents for loving me, feeding me, housing me, and making this thesis possible. For this I owe them everything. Lastly and most importantly I’d like to thank Kelly Deathe for the endless love she has given me and her sustained and immeasurable patience while I have worked on this project. It is her love and support that has allowed me to complete this work. 4 CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 4 Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 5 Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................................... 8 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Primary Working Research Questions ..................................................................................... 13 Grand Strategy ......................................................................................................................... 13 Pre-1965 Defence Agreements ................................................................................................ 15 Literature ................................................................................................................................. 16 1.4.1 Contemporary Literature ..................................................................................................... 18 1.4.2 Post-Cold War Literature ..................................................................................................... 22 1.4.3 Containment and Forward Defence .................................................................................... 23 1.4.4 SEATO .................................................................................................................................. 26 1.4.5 Confrontation and Vietnam ................................................................................................. 27 1.4.6 NZ-China Literature ............................................................................................................. 28 1.4.7 New Zealand and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution .............................................. 32 1.4.8 Cultural Factors ...................................................................................................................