Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to the Asia Chessboard, the podcast that examines geopolitical dynamics in Asia and takes an inside look at the making of grand strategy. I'm Andrew Schwartz at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Welcome back to the Asia Chessboard. I'm Mike Green, joined as always by Jude Blanchett and our guest today, Professor David Capy, the Director of the Center for Strategic Studies and a Professor of International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. We're going to focus on New Zealand because on the Asia Chessboard,
The government in Wellington is making some very interesting moves, which we will try to unpack. But David, welcome. David hosted me in New Zealand for a couple of weeks of serious strategic discussions and even more serious fly fishing. Wonderful, wonderful country. Great host. I really enjoyed it. Now it's my turn to quiz you a bit for our audience.
Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Jude. Nice to join you. So we always start with the origin story. I know you went to York University in Canada for your PhD, but geopolitics is not probably the first thing young kids growing up in New Zealand think of for their career. What happened to you?
Yeah, I mean, I was always interested in the world as a little kid. I remember being sort of quizzed about capitals of the world, sitting around the dinner table as a little kid. And when I went to university, I did international politics, was a real passion. I also sort of dallied with law as well. But I really got interested in Asia when I went to ANU and did a master's degree there. And that was in the sort of mid-late 90s. I got a chance to work with people like Des Ball,
It was a time where Asia was, there was a lot of talk about what Asia might look like after the Cold War, a lot of creativity around regional institutions and so on. And then when I went to Canada, I worked with Amitav Acharya, who was, you know, really pioneering some interesting work on regional institutions in Southeast Asia. And that was something that really caught my attention. And then came back to New Zealand about 20 years ago and ended up taking over from the guy who taught me international politics in the same department.
You studied under a liberal institutionalist, a constructivist, a hardcore realist. You've sort of run the gamut. Tell us a little bit about the strategic community in New Zealand. Is it largely just the government and the university sector? For me and Jude in Washington, you could fit all the think tanks of the world in Washington and still not have as many think tanks as there already are in Washington. So it's obviously a smaller scale, but I found it a very vibrant, interesting debate. What's the strategic community like?
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right, Mike. I mean, the smallness is certainly part of it. So we don't have a think tank community here. You know, we look across the Tasman at the Lowies and the Aspies and so on and look at those with real envy. And so nothing like that or Washington.
So a lot of the people who are interested in strategic issues are in universities. And so it's quite a smallish community, you know, a handful of scholars who work specifically on China, for example, a handful who work on defence and security issues. But it's collegial. There are also sort of advantages and niceness that comes with smallness as well.
I think also New Zealand, partly again because of that smallness, there's opportunities to interact with government, to work with policymakers, especially in a capital like Wellington. And so sometimes you get opportunities in a small place that you might not get in a larger capital. So it's got its pros and cons. But the resource question is always a dilemma for academics in New Zealand at the moment. There's a lot of pressure on universities as well. I did see the benefits of the
more intimate community. It was definitely collegial and it was possible to have in some ways a more strategic discussion because as you said, government's in the room more often than not. There's usually somebody who knows China, somebody who knows the US, somebody who knows trade. So you actually get in some ways a more integrated strategic discussion, which is behind, I suspect, the pretty pronounced shift in New Zealand's international security posture or foreign policy we've seen
in recent months. But before we get to that, I think we may need to bring people a bit up to speed on New Zealand's relationships in the region, treaty commitments, foreign policy principles, maybe a short primer for some of our listeners on New Zealand's recent and historic orientation in the Indo-Pacific.
I think historically, New Zealand's had the kind of approach to its international relations that you'd expect from a small, open, liberal democracy. Very strong interest in respect for international law, multilateral institutions, inclusive institutions, and so on. And probably a feature of New Zealand's diplomacy over the last 30 or 40 years has been a much greater interest in the Asia-Pacific region and in those institutions.
So it also has had strong relationships with traditional allies. It has a formal treaty ally with Australia under ANZUS, was a treaty partner with the United States until the breakdown of that bilateral security relationship in the 1980s, a period I know that you remember dealing with, Mike. And of course, as well as that, there's the Pacific Islands, which are fundamentally important to New Zealand for people-to-people reasons, constitutional reasons, and also strategic reasons. So
So those are kind of core interests. And I think what's happened for New Zealand over the last decade or so is a lot of the certainty, a lot of the predictability around the working of international institutions, a stable balance of power in the Asia-Pacific, the performance of regional institutions and the way the Pacific's work, a lot of that certainty has changed and seems to be in flux today.
And a kind of a period that I think worked really well for New Zealand, as well as the trade space as well, a period that worked really well for New Zealand now looks like it's sort of receding quite quickly in the rearview mirror. The typical pattern I thought for New Zealand's posture in the region with the previous two or three governments was whatever...
the Five Eyes did, Australia, especially the US, Britain and Canada, New Zealand dialed it down one or two notches when it came to China. So New Zealand was the first to negotiate a trade agreement. When the Five Eyes came out and condemned China's crackdown in Hong Kong, New Zealand took a different approach. It's sort of been the pattern that New Zealand has been more careful, I think, tell me if I'm wrong, vis-a-vis China, more careful not to be too closely identified with the
with the sort of Anglosphere. But now you have in Foreign Minister Winston Peters, not his first rodeo, he's been there before, but you have a quite tough stance of what he says in parliament or in speeches. You have this new intelligence community publication fresh off the press that doesn't sound so different from what Australia might
say, in its intelligence assessment about the threat and the challenges, debates about AUKUS and joining that arrangement with the US, UK and Australia. I mean, we'll get into this, but it's a shift, right? And if it is a shift, and I'm sure Juve will want to quiz you on the China debate specifically, what do you attribute it to? Is it the
Is the exogenous environment becoming so uncertain, or is there a bit of domestic politics as well? Is there something about Prime Minister Lux and Winston Peters' return into power, internal politics, trade patterns? What accounts for the shift? Is it mostly or entirely structural, or are there some things within New Zealand we should know about? It's a great question, Mark. I think the shift really began probably around 2018.
2017, 2018 in terms of government policy. And I mean, you mentioned the Five Eyes statements before. I mean, I think one of the things, I think New Zealand was probably, you're probably right to characterize it in the way that you do. New Zealand tended to be a bit quieter, a bit more cautious about some of its language around China. But
You know, at a time in which New Zealand was a little wary about signing up to Five Eyes statements, I think the argument was made that Five Eyes was an intelligence sharing arrangement and that getting into, for example, statements around human rights wasn't a terribly productive way to go. New Zealand often made those comments about, for example, Hong Kong or the treatments of the Uyghurs in India.
unilateral statements or bilateral statements with Australia. So I think it's important to say that it wasn't that New Zealand has only just suddenly found its voice recently. And if you look at last year, for example, the last government actually issued a slew of statements
a national security strategy for the first time, a defense strategy, a foreign affairs assessment, the first intelligence security threatscape that really, I think, laid out a pretty bleak view of the world and the challenges, particularly challenges around a more assertive China. But that's so it's not a kind of the switch has flicked and now we've got a new government. Things are completely different. It has been happening for a while. But that said, you're right to say there is a new approach here.
And I think it's partly, sometimes I think elections provide opportunities for recalibration. We saw that maybe between 2016 and 2017 when the Ardern government came in, there was a bit of a reset on some of the settings. But I think you're also right to point to some of the personalities, people like Winston Peters, who, as you said, this is his third time as foreign minister. He's always been a minister that's, I think, been taken very seriously. There are recommendations of the foreign ministry.
very as good as personal affections and interests in traditional partners. So I think there's a little bit of the personalities as well. And you're right, there has been a real shift. There's a really a willingness to lean in to traditional partners. There's a much more willingness to talk about five eyes, doing things together to want to try and reduce the transaction costs of working with traditional partners.
language around AUKUS Pillar 2, the Quad, cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners in the NATO context. Much of that stuff was sort of touched on before, but this government is really, I think, embracing it with enthusiasm. And that's, I think, a clear change. David, if I could linger on this question for just a minute and try to understand a little bit more about
some of the either behaviors from Beijing that were catalysts for this shift or dynamics within New Zealand, whether it's just, you know, indigenous greater awareness,
about what China was doing, which isn't exclusive to the first dynamic. I think you find this reinforcing in lots of other market democracies where China's behavior becomes a bit too aggressive, even for more moderate or pragmatists in the system, which catalyzes change. But at the same time, that then unlocks a new awareness and a set of tools to look at behavior, which Beijing has been doing forever and was able to sort of pass under the bridge, which is now getting scrutiny
Just walk us through, since 2018, what are some of the either moments or behaviors emanating from Beijing that had the biggest catalyst event for shaping the debate in New Zealand? So I think it's hard to isolate single positions, single actions that have been particularly, singularly driven the change. But I think collectively...
New Zealanders have become much more aware, for example, of issues around the treatment of minorities. So human rights have always been an issue for New Zealanders in terms of the China relationship. So the treatment of the Uyghurs, for example, was a big issue. Hong Kong, many New Zealanders have family connections or have had business or personal connections to Hong Kong in some ways. So the shifts there were part of it.
South China Sea issues around just the use of force and coercion that have been in Taiwan, East China Sea, those sorts of things are starting to have permeated into public conversations.
A couple that I think really made a significant change was one was the Australian experience and the levels of economic coercion and the pressure that was handed out to Australian exporters for expressing a range of views that China didn't like. So that was one. And of course, there's 650,000 New Zealanders that live in Australia and are familiar with the Australian experience. New Zealand is
and government officials know their Australian counterparts really well. And there's a lot of sharing, obviously, of information and experience. So I think that was one that really had a breakthrough in terms of public engagement.
understanding. And I think the other one was the Pacific, and that was the China-Solomon Islands deal. After China talking for so long and denying about any ambitions in the Pacific, and then I think that deal being leaked, the idea of having a large authoritarian power seeking a security footprint so close to New Zealand, I think, was also unsettling.
So I think those cumulatively, it's hard to pick one or other out, have had an impact. And we don't have a lot of opinion polling that's done here. But the Asia New Zealand Foundation has got a really good longitudinal survey that goes back about 26 years. And you can see a sharp drop in those warmth perceptions towards China from sort of 2019 or so on, as we've seen in other liberal democracies.
What is the debate like within New Zealand on China policy? Again, thinking of your neighbor, Australia, the public debate on China has been raucous. It has been loud. It has been interesting. There have been some pretty sizable debates.
and seismic issues that have been debated. What does it look like in New Zealand? Yeah, I mean, the debate's interesting. It's sort of manifesting itself. You talked about a raucous debate. We're having a bit of an aukus debate here at the moment. And so China, my sense is that New Zealanders instinctively have begun to understand for the reasons I mentioned before that China is
China in 2024 is not the China of 2006 and that things have changed and we now have a much more powerful China and a much more assertive China. And I think they've understood that. I think really in some ways the debate is what to do about it. And that's playing out in a number of different ways. So in the trade space, for example,
There's been a line from successive governments for a while about the importance of diversification. You know, exports were as high as over 30% of exports went to China. It's actually come back quite a long way to about 22, 23% now, but I think partly that's just because of a slowdown in China itself. So diversification was pushed for a while, but that's a hard thing to do for an agricultural exporting nation. There's challenges in terms of finding new markets.
Where it's got more contentious has been in the security space. And so at the moment, we're having a fairly lively by New Zealand standard debate around potential engagement with pillar two of AUKUS. And there you have a whole range of views. You have some people who would say, who are critics of the government's position, who would say, actually, this is really an attempt to sort of prop up US primacy. The US is a declining power and it's using AUKUS to try and contain China. You
You have others who say, actually, New Zealand's connections shouldn't be with the traditional partners and the Anglosphere. We're a Pacific nation and we should identify more with the Pacific. And others who say, well, look, this is a dangerous time, a really challenging time. We need to get closer to democratic partners and traditional partners and allies.
There's a lively debate about how to respond to China, I think. My sense is, even if, for example, in the business community, that there's a growing sense that China today is not the China that we've dealt with in the past. Just one more question for me, David. I'm sure Mike wants to pick up on the Arcus pillar too. And I'd like to pick up on this de-risking diversification question. I'm sure the aforementioned example of Australia and what China was willing to do to Australia...
for some political faux pas, obviously had a reverberation through New Zealand. Can you talk a bit about what are you hearing in terms of the government to business discussion that's happening in New Zealand? Is New Zealand government recommending and trying to urge diversification from China? And then I guess just at a higher strategic level,
What is New Zealand's play here, though? Because it's one thing for economies deeply supported or underlied by domestic consumption like the United States to think about a robust de-risking agenda because it's
in some sense, at the margin for a very, very small trade-dependent economy where China's the largest trade partner. The United States is the second, but still China's the largest trade partner. The play space is more limited. So is there a more fundamental strategic discussion just about the overall orientation of New Zealand's economy? Or is it we're just going to have to deal with a suboptimal hand of trying to manage this with China and keep ourselves out of the bullseye?
I guess to answer the first part of your question first, what are the conversations between New Zealand government and business? I mean, I think those have been going on for a number of years now. I mean, making clear that the geopolitical risk that's out there. And I think the Australian experience has been, as I said before, been quite strikingly felt on this side of the Tasman as well. And I think...
Certainly for some big exporters, they have taken that lesson to hand. And so some of them, for example, you'll see with informal quotas on what they will send into the China market. And so you saw prime ministers messaging around diversification quite clearly, but there was a little bit of a schizophrenic position to some extent there.
partly because you would have governments calling for diversification, but then on a prime ministerial visit to China, for example, it's also always billed as an export, a trade delegation and bringing along big business as well.
So a little bit of schizophrenia there. I mean, I think the second question, though, is a really interesting one. Ultimately, where does New Zealand, what's the New Zealand play in this sort of de-risking diversification world? I mean, I think the new government would like to shift
shift the New Zealand economy in ways away from simply being an agricultural food producer. But this move up the value chain has a high interest in New Zealand being a high wage, you know, a tech economy and so on. But this is something that, you know, successive... Every leader wants their country to be that, David. Exactly. And it's not, you know, successive leaders and governments have talked about this. And if it were as easy to do as it is to say, it would have happened a long time ago.
So, I mean, but there are some interesting transformations in the tech space, for example, in the space sector, which has grown out of nowhere in the last decade or so, to New Zealand being the fourth largest number of space launches in the world last year. So there are some examples like that.
But I think New Zealand is going to be a big agricultural producer for a long time to come. And when you look around the world, that's a challenging space in terms of breaking into new markets. Something like 75% of New Zealand's exports are in FTA arrangements already. Two of the big markets where we don't have an FTA are the United States and India.
And right now, the Luxembourg government's talked a lot about investing in the India relationship, wanting to develop that relationship. But that's going to be a very tough place to try and get an economic agreement that includes the things that New Zealand prioritizes like dairy. So tough going all around. Well, I, for one, have no problem with New Zealand remaining a major agricultural exporter. When I was in the White House, the ambassador said,
would invite me, Bob Zellick, others involved in trade negotiations to dinner and service things that we could not get without high tariffs like Whitestone cheese and lamb and other absolutely intoxicating treats. In fact, Bob Zellick, who hopefully won't listen to this and give me a ring, wouldn't eat
He didn't feel it was proper to be eating New Zealand lamb and Whitestone cheese and pavlova while negotiating with the trade minister. But I couldn't resist. So I filled myself. I want to talk about and do a deeper dive on the U.S. and New Zealand. One of the sort of fault lines in American strategic thinking is we tend to think it's all about us.
And my time with you, David, in New Zealand reinforced for me that it isn't. That is the Asian New Zealand Foundation polls show for Kiwis, the most important strategic partnership, I think the number was 75% identified it this way, is Australia.
And as you suggested earlier, that Australia experience was so influential. Tell us a bit more about how Australia and New Zealand work together. There's a lot of mutual teasing. There's a lot of banter. I think Americans and Canadians don't have quite the same repartee as Australians.
there is across the Tasman. When I was there, I heard a lot from anglers about Australian fishing prowess being inferior and so forth. But are we seeing the emergence of more of a kind of Anzac style, the tradition in the First World War and the Second World War and the early Cold War of a sort of Australia-New Zealand strategic concept, common operating picture for the militaries? Is that what's emerging right now, do you think?
Well, I mean, you're absolutely right, Mike. I mean, there is no relationship that New Zealand has that compares to the relationship with Australia. I mean, across every dimension. I mentioned before the 650,000 New Zealanders that live in Australia. The economies are incredibly closely intertwined.
The politics of the place, I mean, New Zealand ministers and politicians know their Australian counterparts personally. There's not a single thing that Australia does or says or thinks in the world that doesn't in some ways matter to New Zealand. So the closeness of that relationship is huge.
hugely important. You know, I think over the last few years, there's been some frictions in the relationship, particularly over people-to-people issues. The treatment of New Zealanders in Australia and around deportations. But, you know, happily, I think those have been managed. And what we've seen in the last few, particularly since the election of the
And I think what you mentioned, this sort of ANZAC connection, I think that's the thing that's really interesting in the context of the new government. There was a two plus two, the first ever two plus two between New Zealand and Australia in February this year. And if you look at the joint statement there, it talks a lot about doing far more together in the security space.
So you've seen, for example, talk about moving ahead with interchangeability between New Zealand forces and their Australian counterparts. You've now got high level Australian officers embedded in New Zealand headquarters and New Zealand two stars embedded in Australian headquarters.
I think there will always be differences, there will always be different approaches, but I think there's a recognition that at a time in which the region is really changing fundamentally and changing in ways that are really challenging for a small state like New Zealand, that getting close to Australia is fundamentally important. And I would think, David, that the Australian Defence Forces getting closer to the US would have to have some significant impact on longer-term thinking.
Not just AURCAS, developing nuclear attack submarine capabilities, PILO-2 with advanced technologies, but force posture initiatives. Australia is becoming a really important base for American training, logistics, and operational thinking with submarine access in Western Australia, Air Force and Marine Corps in the north of Australia, and more, already historically high, but even more embeds and connectivity between the U.S.,
And Australia, while Australia doesn't have a commitment to defend Japan or the Taiwan Relations Act, the operational connectivity is pretty pronounced. And is this something that people raise red flags about or quietly accept as part of the times? Or do you think in Wellington there's a sense that New Zealand sovereignty and separateness from this U.S.-Australia trend is sufficient?
It's a really good question, Mike. I think probably at the official level, there's a recognition that the opportunities that come from working with both New Zealand and Australia are really useful for New Zealand. And we see New Zealand involved in the big exercises like Pitch Black and others that bring those partners together. I think at the public opinion level, there's probably a range of views. And then I think some of, for example, I mean, this certainly plays out in AUKUS, for example. And probably also there's a degree of qualsity
caution around things like, for example, the deployments or rotation of the B-52s through Australia and so on. New Zealanders tend, I think, public opinion, New Zealanders tend to be a bit less comfortable about sort of the use of hard power. But I wouldn't say there are red flags in that sense. Yeah. It is interesting, really, because, I don't know, you told me about 10 or 15 years ago, there would have been more red flags, I think.
Yeah, I mean, the New Zealand-US defence relationship has also come a long way in the last 15 years. I mean, if you think the Washington Declaration was in 2012, there's a very rich number of exercises and interactions that take place between New Zealand Defence Force and the US all the time. We've had a Navy ship visit. I think it was in 2017 where you had a New Zealand frigate joined a US nuclear-powered carrier operation.
task force in the Sea of Japan. I mean, and the idea would, I mean, I think probably 20 years ago, people would have been on the edge of their seats, worried what public opinion would say about something like that. And it was sort of taken largely for granted. So I think there's a sense that that's also shifted a long way. I mean, I can tell you candidly, there would have been some hesitation in Washington and Canberra as well. I mean, the whole rupture in the mid 80s was
Not because the U.S. Navy, for operational reasons, had to be able to send nuclear powered ships to New Zealand. That was really not a priority on its own terms. It was concern, as you know, about the effect of giving New Zealand a carve out.
on ship visits and what effect that would have on the Labor Party in Australia and particularly the left and on Japan, where U.S. military access is absolutely vital. And that thinking continued well into the time I was in the administration. I mean, we tried to do something like the Wellington Declaration after 9-11 because the SAS and U.S. Special Operations Forces were together in Afghanistan and sort of, you
As you know, while with the Five Eyes intelligence relationship continued in many ways, translating that into the operational bit was incredibly cumbersome and difficult at a time when SAS and US Special Operations Forces, who have huge respect for each other, were in the fight in Afghanistan. So there was an effort, but there was still great sensitivity, as we've discussed, about
Doing that at a time when the U.S. was trying to get the first nuclear-powered carrier homeported in Japan, when there was still Mark Latham was running for the Labor Party in Australia on an anti-American platform. So it was hard before. I think now in both Canberra and Washington, those concerns have, if not completely, largely dissipated.
So in some ways, the limiting factor may actually be on the New Zealand side in terms of how far the Washington Declaration gets operationalized. But as you point out, a lot has happened. I also think maybe you can...
riff on this for a minute. I mean, I also think there's a sense that New Zealand's capacity to be a net exporter of security really matters right now as the Pacific Islands become more contested. Maybe I should turn the table on you and ask you, like, what's the case for New Zealand to Americans and Australians? What can New Zealand contribute to security going forward? I mean, I think you've kind of put your finger on a big
a really big issue right now, and that's that question of capacity and capability. And one of the things I think that really limits New Zealand's ability to do more, I mean, and this government has talked a lot about doing more and wanted to engage not just with the US and Australia, but has also advanced pretty ambitious defence goals with Japan. It wants to be doing more in Southeast Asia. The security part of its regional diplomacy has really stepped up with the Philippines, with Singapore,
But one of the limits on that, I think, is around resources and capability. So, for example, the New Zealand Navy, of its platforms, I think all of the ships in the New Zealand Navy, other than the tanker Aotearoa, need to be replaced by the mid-2030s. You know, the consequences of significant underinvesting in defence that goes back decades. It's not one party or the other, but just longstanding neglect of defence investment. And that really limits, I think, the ability to do more. And right now...
The government is in the sort of final stages of working through a defence review process that's really a kind of a white paper in several stages, the last part of which is a defence capability plan that talks about the specific platforms and capabilities that New Zealand needs to be contributing to regional security, to be looking after its own national interests, to be working with partners. And we'll need to come up with a list of what those capabilities are and also come up with a way to fund those.
And I think at a time in which there's a lot of fiscal pressure and using a lot of call for government, a lot of deep cuts in government spending, that's going to be a very challenging space for the government to find itself in. But they want to do more. I think they have set out some ambitious goals. But that question of capability is really something I think that that's limiting, putting those words into action. Is there a debate about increasing defense spending? Yeah.
There is, and I think that almost all political parties in Parliament now support an increase in defence spending. They might have different visions of what they would spend that money on, but in the last election you had all three parties that are currently part of the coalition talked about notional targets of close to 2%. The Labour government was also supportive of increasing defence spending, and there has actually been an increase in defence spending in the last couple of years.
But there's those really big looming capability that block obsolescence of a whole suite of whole series of platforms all at once that are going to be challenging. So, David, this has been great. My guess is you're going to be in increasing demand because New Zealand is moving on the chessboard in ways that are really interesting.
Our podcast has listeners in the US, Japan, Australia, but also NATO countries, India. Of course, they should all follow your work at the Center for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. But in addition to that, what are things people should watch? I mean, what's the next sort of big indicator of the strategic direction New Zealand's taking? Is it AUKUS Pillar 2 decisions? Is it something about human rights? Actually, what should we be looking for if we want to track New Zealand's trajectory strategically?
Yeah, I mean, I think there are probably a few. I think the defence capability plan will be really important in the signals it sends. And that's scheduled, I think, to go to Cabinet later in the year, October maybe. And so we might get a sense of
the government's appetite to invest in defence then. I think that AUKUS is also a lively debate. It's a strange debate in that there's not really a formal invitation on the table to New Zealand. Somebody described it to me as New Zealand is talking about what they're going to wear to a party that they haven't been invited to yet.
But it is actually quite lively, and it's good to see a good contest of views on New Zealand strategic issues. I think one of the other things that's going to be interesting to watch, and we haven't really talked about it in this, is IP4, is New Zealand's engagement with its Indo-Pacific partners in the NATO context. Because that, to me, looks like a mini lateral that has some momentum and some energy. And there you've seen New Zealand go from, I think, being perhaps one of the more wary members of IP4,
maybe 12 months ago, two at the Washington summit being probably one of the more enthusiastic and energetic. And there's talk about Secretary Blinken meeting with IP4 foreign ministers later in the year outside of a NATO context. And so I think that could be a mini lateral or a grouping with a future to watch. So those are a couple of things that I'm keeping an eye on. Excellent. Last and most important geopolitical question of all, and then we'll wrap.
Is Pavlova from Australia or New Zealand? Oh, it's clearly from New Zealand. Good. Decided. Absolutely no doubt. All of the experts agree. That is a thoroughly researched and proven project from the Center for Strategic Studies in Wellington. And I'm going to get more hate mail on that than anything I've ever said. David, this has been wonderful. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure. Thanks very much for having me.
For more on strategy and the Asia program's work, visit the CSIS website at csis.org and click on the Asia program page. And for more on the U.S. Studies Center in Sydney, please visit ussc.edu.au.