China’s Engagement with New Caledonia
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I'm Bonnie Glaser, Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Welcome to the China Global Podcast. New Caledonia is a French territory comprising dozens of islands in the South Pacific. It possesses 25% of the world's nickel resources, which is a mineral critical in the development of weaponry.

several referenda on full independence from france have been held in the territory but none so far have passed in recent years china has paid growing attention to the region and new caledonia is one of its targets of interest

A new report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, known as ASPE, titled When China Knocks at the Door of New Caledonia, explains China's interests, intentions, and activities in New Caledonia. It calls for greater attention to the territory and makes recommendations for the United States and other regional actors to address growing Chinese interferences.

to discuss Beijing's approach to New Caledonia. I'm thrilled to be joined today by the report's author, Anne-Marie Brady, and she is Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Anne-Marie specializes in Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy, polar politics, China-Pacific politics, and New Zealand foreign policy. And thank you so much for being with us today, Anne-Marie.

Thank you, Bonnie. It's really great to talk with you again. So let's start. Maybe you can just for those of us who are relatively unfamiliar with New Caledonia, can you briefly give us some background? What's the context that we need to understand before we dive into China's role and interests in New Caledonia?

Well, New Caledonia is formerly part of France's Autrimaire. It's a territory, sui generis, it's called a unique status that's part of France, but it's on an agreed transition towards greater autonomy and potentially

independence, depending on the outcome of referendums that, as you mentioned, have been held and then pass the referendums through the negotiations. But in the last four months, New Caledonia has been going through a very difficult phase of being violent protests and looting and riots.

in protests against the Macron government, which pushed through a referendum through the parliament that was going to increase voting rights at the local level. And the independence movement in New Caledonia was very strongly opposed to that. And so New Caledonia is at a crisis point at the moment and

it's even harder than it ever was to resolve the future status of New Caledonia. And just one more thing I'd like to say actually about New Caledonia that many people may not have heard of is that New Caledonia was really critical to the defence of the Pacific in World War II. It is in a very strategic location. It was

an important base for the US forces in World War II. About a million US personnel passed through New Caledonia in World War II and about 15,000 New Zealand troops were stationed there as well as quite a few Australians and it was their forward base

to push back Japan in the war. It lies along strategic sea lines of communication and air routes. So the future of New Caledonia is crucial to the security of the Pacific today.

Yeah, those are really great points. So let's bring into the conversation China's interests and role. How long has it been involved in New Caledonia is what you're seeing, what you describe in your report, which we'll get into in greater detail in a minute. Is it relatively new? What's the sort of history of China's involvement in New Caledonia?

Well, China's interests across the whole of the Pacific have been a hot topic for about 20 years now. And I started researching the question, you know, about 20 years ago when people were starting to talk about and look at it.

And when I looked at the situation in New Caledonia, I found that there was a lot of speculation, but very little evidence. And I thought it would be important to really trace, go deep and see what indication there is of China's interest and involvement in New Caledonia. So I've been working on this paper for eight years. And what I found was that

China has a surprising range of interests in and engagement with New Caledonia. And one of the most telling things I found was a report, an assessment from the Chinese foreign ministry, a Chinese foreign ministry think tank, which was talking about the strategic importance of New Caledonia and the post, if New Caledonia became independent,

the situation after that and whichever great power would dominate in New Caledonia and this was published back in 1988 I think China has maintained links with the independence movement has supported it financially at times and

New Caledonia is included in the Belt and Road Initiative in Chinese documents, even though New Caledonia hasn't signed any agreements and nor has France on the Belt and Road. New Caledonia does have some limited autonomy on some foreign affairs.

matters. So what I found is that there were lots of points of contact from China and much along the same lines of the pattern that I have identified in my earlier research where I was assessing China's foreign interference in countries like New Zealand,

Albania, Japan and other states and we see a recognizable passion and that's the similar passion in New Caledonia targeting elites, targeting the Chinese community, trying to influence and shape the information discourse and forms of economic dependence that can also bind the territory to China.

You talk about in the report the Chinese Communist Party's international united front work. For many years, China's united front work was mostly thought of as targeted at overseas ethnic Chinese communities.

But that has really expanded. So can you talk a little bit about what the international united front looks like and how this is manifested in New Caledonia? Yeah, thanks for that question, Bonnie. A lot of people are paying attention to the CCP united front work these days, Tongtang Gongzuo.

in Chinese. I've been researching it since I first started my graduate research. And it's not new, international united front. It's a part of the CCP's approach to managing foreigners. So they have these, as Ken Lieberthal was one of the scholars who spoke, who sort of detailed this quite well about these

supra, I call them policy groupings on different areas. So in Chinese, the word is shi tong. So there's the propaganda and thought work, shi tong, or policy grouping, basically the public sphere. There's the foreign affairs, shi tong. So all things to do with foreigners, the wei shi tong. And that was the subject of my doctoral thesis in my second book.

And what I found in my research on the 外事系统, the foreign affairs system, is you would find the words 国际同战, international united front, used interchangeably with 外事,

When I started my doctoral research, I had a lot of pushback from established scholars of Chinese foreign policy who said to me, this is not foreign policy, this is not foreign affairs, and they dismissed it. And what I have learned to argue over the years to understand is that Western political science and international relations has this

a particular set of framing for understanding what is foreign affairs. We think it's state to state and a set of theories but the Chinese Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist political party and the Leninist part is really important and the United Front concept is an absolute key aspect to Leninism. In fact, I think if you want to understand Chinese foreign policy you need to grasp

United Front concept about these tactical temporary alliances and each time it's necessary in each era to understand China or the Soviet Union back in the day or Vietnam and other communist Marxist-Leninist parties you need to understand who in their eyes is the chief enemy.

So in World War II, the chief enemy or main threat was Japan. But since the breakup of the Soviet Union for China, the chief enemy, the main threat is the United States. So while the United Front work is used within the Chinese diaspora community and also in China against or to manage Tibetans and religious groups and so on, that's one...

small aspect to it the overarching concept is this the world view that the CCP has about the challenges it faces and the key one is externally who is the chief threat and then policies flow from that so when it comes to international relations and United Front works say in the Pacific

New Zealand's a good example. New Zealand's a Five Eyes member state and New Zealand has experienced a lot of the CCP's united front work, in other words, political interference.

And one of the main reasons amongst many is that New Zealand's a Five Eyes partner and breaking New Zealand away from that alliance will weaken the US and isolate New Zealand. So this is the, I think, in our field of Chinese politics, there has been, people have not focused so much on

on these aspects of the party. And there's really been a handful of scholars who are looking at it. What's going on specifically in New Caledonia? What are the manifestations of this policy? Where do you see interference of activities by China today?

Well, what I found was over decades targeting political elites and one of the most engagement with and support, covert support of the independence movement, as well as, you know, what's been very interesting about United Front work in the present era is

a lot of it's been quite public because our governments haven't understood the context. So for a while, from 2016 to 18, the French government

encouraged New Caledonia to engage more with China. And the means for that engagement was officially with official permission from France via the New Caledonia-China Friendship Association, which is a front organization that is partnered with

and guided by the Chinese Association for Friendship, Youxie, Duoyouxie in Chinese, the People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

which is a key United Front organization, which is under the leadership of the International Liaison Department of the CCP, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and plus Jinxia is its other leading body. Jinxia is the Chinese People's Consultative Committee.

And so the French government had authorized a China front organization to represent New Caledonia in its interactions with China. Now that policy's changed now and yet, but the interesting thing about New Caledonia is there is that autonomy between

within the system. So France has its policies, but the government of New Caledonia, which is currently, or has until recently been led by a pro-independence coalition, it's just changed in the last couple of weeks,

They have been continuing aspects of that policy from 2016 to 2018, but much more, well, I would simply say, on a less public way than before. And then there's been the economic, as really significant as the big change economically has,

in the relations with China and New Caledonia. Because France, as it does where I'm here at the moment in French Polynesia, is extremely vigilant about the risk of China to French interests and sovereignty. And they do have a voice on mineral rights and exports in New Caledonia. They're on the mining council there.

And so for quite a long time, there was quite a limit on exports of nickel to China. But that all changed about 10 years ago. So they went from about 11% exports of nickel to China to a year ago, up to 63%. It's

it's come down again because one of the provinces of Nicaraguan where there is more autonomy have decided to reduce their relations with China because of their political concerns and now it's down to zero because of the riots but that kind of economic dependency we've seen elsewhere in the Pacific

it influences the politics too, because politicians are afraid to offend their main market. That's actually the dominant narrative in New Zealand. And we don't have anywhere near the level of dependence on China trade that New Caledonia has had for the last 10 years. So that's another factor. And France is talking about wanting, you know, Nichols' strategic strategy

resource and wanting access for France and Europe for that nickel but it's so slow the change in economic policies in Europe to become more self-sufficient and deal with these kind of vulnerabilities and meanwhile China is already there

You mentioned earlier that there are Belt and Road projects in New Caledonia. Have there been loans that, as we have seen in some of the recipient countries, that have led to a great deal of debt? Is that also a problem? And

Do you know offhand what some of the major projects have been under the belting road and what their consequences have been? In some places, of course, we've seen the Chinese bring in their own labor. We've seen negative environmental impact. Of course, there's been a wide range of impacts of belting road projects, and some of them have been more successful than others. So what does it look like in New Caledonia?

Well, what it looks like in New Caledonia, it's really important, talking about Belt and Road in China, is to separate what China says is happening and then what's happening on the ground. Because there's a lot of propaganda about it on the Chinese side that doesn't match the reality. And it can be quite surprising.

for countries to discover how China is talking about them in Belt and Road. For example, China talks about further deepening New Zealand's involvement in Belt and Road. And New Zealand has formally said, we're not talking to you anymore about Belt and Road. They had agreement to discuss.

But they're still sending delegations to New Zealand about that. So for New Caledonia, amongst the interviews that I did, there were people from the New Caledonia China Friendship Society who told me they were surprised in one of their early

early visits to China to be included in this conference, which was specifically about how to involve New Caledonia in the Belt and Road. And they said there were about 50 Chinese scholars there who presented papers on how China was going to involve New Caledonia in Belt and Road. And one of the main areas was going to be aquaculture, because aquaculture is less

sensitive for France and there would be more ability to develop things. Well, that hasn't happened yet. And of course the pandemic was slowed everything down. These things are starting to get into motion from 2018, 19, and then comes the pandemic. So everything stops for a while. Another project that was talked about with New Caledonia and Belt and Road was

The idea of a Pacific hub of airports linked back to China, that the Solomon Islands airfield, formerly called Henderson Airfield, which was built by Japan and then the US in World War II and was fought over, many lives lost, was going to be the Pacific hub with direct flights up to China.

and that New Caledonia would have an airport, a connecting airport from the Loyalty Islands which is the third province of New Caledonia as part of that. Well the Loyalty Islands built that airport with funding from France, built their international airport but they've only had one international flight so far and it was to Vanuatu. So

So the story that I found in New Caledonia and China was of many, many efforts on the Chinese side. And then a really interesting pattern of like ping pong was a resistance, resistance when things were sent the way of New Caledonia. And not just from the French, you know, connect leaders in some situations and also in leaders elsewhere.

within the independence movement who have had experiences, business experience with China or even earlier experiences which they weren't happy about. And one of the comments I heard from one of the key figures in the FLNKS, which is the group of political parties that are pro-independence in New Caledonia, Mr. Roque Wamitane, he said,

that Nicoladonia did not want to swap one form of dependence for another. And he said, we're not foolish about China. But he also said that doesn't mean France has carte blanche. So the most concerning thing I found really was the economic dependence. And that is something that is going to need further consideration.

work on diversifying the markets. But also now we have this extraordinary situation of more than four months of rioting. There have been thousands of cars have been burnt and houses burnt and buildings burnt. An estimated at least $2.2 billion worth of damage in New Caledonia. The nickel industry to come to a standstill. So who will pay for the rebuild?

because France can't pay for it all. And New Caledonian leaders are already reaching out to Australia for assistance. So that's the next question is, you know, we would not want a situation such as occurred in Tonga after the riots in Nukulofa, where Tonga then became dependent on China because of loans that were given to rebuild.

So I assume that at least part of Beijing's strategy is that if New Caledonia were to become independent, that they would want to establish diplomatic ties with New Caledonia. And there's only a handful, I think three countries in the Pacific that still recognize the Republic of China, Taiwan.

Do you think that that would be the likely outcome? Is there sufficient sort of interest groups, including maybe business, some in New Caledonia, that would want to be aligned with China? Or do they have any relationship with Taiwan?

There was a limited relationship with the Republic of China with the independence women in the 1980s, but the export markets to Taiwan have grown in the last couple of years to about 15% of nickel-edony and nickel exports are going to the Republic of China.

But, you know, it would be, FLNKS would be talking about establishing an office in, that's the independence group, an office in Beijing, also the government of New Caledonia.

have talked about establishing an embassy, well, they can't have an embassy, but an office, a representative office there, or sending somebody from their foreign affairs staff into the French embassy in Beijing. So there have been discussions about this,

putting the relationship on more open and official channels than via the friendship of society which has had been has been if

I mean, New Caledonia's status cannot be decided overnight. And as a democracy, it would require a collective decision. That's what the referendum is all about. But in the hypothetical situation that there was an independent Kanaki, then yes, it's obvious, of course, they would recognize the People's Republic of China

But the question in the Pacific for the former French territories or the French territories of French Polynesia and New Caledonia is if, you know, what kind of relationship would they then have with France? Would it be like the compact states of the North Pacific in which the U.S. agrees to, you

provide substantial amount of funding in return for them being essentially aligned with the US or more be like in a relationship and free association such as New Zealand has with Niue and the Cook Islands in that they are independent sovereign states which New Zealand is with their permission responsible for their foreign affairs and defense but they do have more autonomy and we don't New Zealand is not required

not required to subsidise them, but that does provide substantial aid to them. So the next question is for New Caledonians, who would continue to provide the very good standard of living that they have there at the moment in New Caledonia? Because France provides very, very large subsidies. And one of the proposals from the FLNKS group was that New Caledonia could become a Djibouti of the Pacific,

in other words to be a open itself to be a military base for many many countries could be france could be australia could be china now that would really change things in the pacific but these are all hypotheticals because at the moment the political status of new caledonia remains on an on an agreed transition but the outcome we don't know

How does China's relationship with France factor into its approach to New Caledonia? Yeah, that is a great question, Bonnie, because one of the things in my research that I found that I had to learn and understand is about, it wasn't just about what China was doing in New Caledonia, but also how France was thinking about China and the way in which France either, you

was inadvertently facilitating China's increased interference in New Colour Dioneer or not dealing with, perhaps dealing with China in a way that was contrary to their stated interests.

So, you know, Macron government has talked about this, the geopolitical, sort of an independence and balancing role that France plays between

China and the United States, the French government in it, it doesn't like to openly criticize China usually, although it's interesting when Macron has come to French Polynesia and New Caledonia, he's been very, very frank about the risk of China. But in other situations, he's much more conciliatory

And so France's policy appears quite contradictory. And I've often been told by French diplomats that unlike Australia or even New Zealand, France doesn't like to confront China. And one of the, even though they recognize the risk, and one of the things that I point out in my paper is that

France may not like to confront China, but France is the only military power after the United States that has a global military presence. And China's agenda is to push out the US from the Indo-Pacific, particularly East Asia. And France's military assets are in the way of China's agenda.

So whether if China, France may not want to confront China, but China will be, is in effect wanting to have France, lessen France's influence and power presence in the Pacific region because it affects China's agenda. So that's a tension.

that the French are well aware of, but I think in their public pronouncements and also how they're dealing with China at the highest level, Macron versus Xi Jinping, I don't think they've fully incorporated the understanding from the Chinese side. You have what they think, but what China thinks, how your adversary thinks of you, I think you have to take into account.

So you make recommendations in your paper for how outside powers, and of course, New Zealand being a very important one, Australia another, the United States has been paying more attention to the Pacific. But sometimes let's, rightly so, I think Australia and New Zealand take the lead, but we are coordinating.

What are the recommendations that you make for these different outside powers or also perhaps for France, for the New Caledonia government to ensure that China's, what you refer to as foreign interference activities, do not increase and become more problematic for the governance of New Caledonia going forward?

Well, they say that history repeats, but it doesn't rhyme. So New Caledonia in World War II was really vulnerable, really strategic, but also somewhat isolated. And then very quickly, New Zealand and Australia understood the risk from

from 1940 on with the German invasion of France that we could have, that we would have, we did have a Vichy government in the Pacific that was part of the Axis powers. And so New Zealand and Australia embraced the peoples of the Francophone Pacific who were the first in the world to support the Free French

and that call of de Gaulle for the French people around the world to stand with him. And so now again, now we have territories, we have countries of the Pacific, not colonial territories as they were in World War II. We need the countries of the Pacific to stand with New Caledonia and better integrate New Caledonia

and French Polynesia into the regional government, into with trade as well, because they've been quite isolated due to their status with France. And I think that France has been quite protective and rather jealous of regional integration. I think the partners of the Blue Pacific, France was initially consulted

but has not yet joined Partners in the Blue Pacific because they're unhappy about how New Caledonia was approached before France was on that topic. So I think we must, allies must just learn to get along and we have to, and this is the same thing in World War II, they had the same problem, De Gaulle and Roosevelt and Churchill had their disagreements.

We have to drop that and get along and understand what the real challenges are. And our governments talk about this. They have publicly said, you know, the behavior of China and Russia is a real threat to the world's base international order. So we need France to have more of an open mind and be more accommodating and listen a bit more. We need the countries of the Pacific to embrace New Caledonia

and support them in particularly we need economic support. They're gonna need help with the rebuild. They're gonna need new markets as well.

We've been talking with Professor of Political Science, Anne-Marie Brady, who teaches at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. And I want to thank you, Anne-Marie, for all of your great work on the Pacific, on the Arctic, on New Zealand. The government of New Zealand, as you know, just came out with a new threat assessment report. The

the second one and I think it reflects a lot of your insights and work that you have done over the years so congratulations and I know that your work will be really influential going forward so thank you again for joining us. Kia ora and thank you Bonnie for the work that you do also.