Taiwan Today

New Zealand (NZ) has actively sought closer relations
with its Asian neighbors since recasting itself to
better reflect geopolitical reality in the early 1980s.
One of the protagonists behind the scenes of the
ever-strengthening Taiwan-NZ friendship is Member of
Parliament (MP) for the Wellington area Ohariu-Belmont
electorate, the Honorable Peter Dunne. Dunne is the
founding leader of United Future--a crucial partner for
any would-be coalition government with eight seats
in the House--and chairman of Parliament's Foreign Affairs,
Defence and Trade Select Committee. Taiwan Review interviewed
the maverick MP to find out more about his party, his ties to
Taiwan and how he envisions NZ.
 
 

Taiwan Review: How would you describe your party United Future and its place in NZ politics now and in the future?

Peter Dunne: Now, we're the closest thing in NZ to a center party. We're probably the only party that could credibly work with either the National Party or the Labor Party. As for the future, it is very much to cement that role. So, essentially, in an ideal world, a government could not be formed without our participation.

At the moment how are you cooperating with the Labor Party government?

We have what is called a "confidence and supply" agreement. That is we have formally signed an agreement that in return for certain policy concessions, we will support the government in the House on matters of confidence and supply, which is essentially the budget, and we'll take other issues on a case-by-case basis. We work on a good faith, no surprises basis, which means that if we have disagreements, we signal them well in advance so that we can essentially manage our way around them. So we're in a funny position; we're not formally part of the government, but in fact the government can't govern without us and in a practical sense, we would be its coalition partner, although, if you follow, we're not formally in that arrangement.

How it works in a practical sense is if the government announces it wants to do something, invariably by the time it's made that announcement it has either consulted with us to make sure it's got our support, and if we haven't got it we've worked out what we could support, or it's sort of floating a kite and hoping like hell that we'll come to the party. In the days of the First Past the Post system, parties were much happier simply saying that as of midnight tonight we'll do such and such, just knowing that they had the numbers in the House to do so. The Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) representation system [which NZ introduced by referendum in 1993] is more deliberate; it takes more time--I was just talking to Taiwan's representative in NZ and I understand the rather fluid situation you've got there at the moment and that what they are going for sounds like something similar to MMP--you need to be more deliberate, less cavalier, but once you work the ground rules out and you get the processes in place for ensuring there's good consultation and all that sort of stuff, there's no problem. We've an arrangement where when ministers are bringing forward proposals, they've got to make sure that before they take them through the government's internal rules, they have to get a sign-off from us, which means they come and talk to us. We've got a procedure that we go through; we then write back to them and say that yes we'll back this but no we won't back that. So if you set the systems up, it's not difficult.

You held various under-secretarial and ministerial portfolios during the time NZ realigned itself in terms of trade and geopolitics. Were you involved in the opening up of immigration policy?

Not directly, but I was certainly part of the government at the time and very supportive of it. In terms of changing the face of NZ and creating a new vision and direction for our country, I think it was the right thing to do. We've got to now carry through the consequences of that action, and you can't just say to people well, look you're welcome to come here and be New Zealanders and we love having you here, we love your cuisine and you've got quite cute dancers, but that's about where it begins and ends; you're not really like the rest of us. I don't think that has been said to people brutally, but it's the impression people have been allowed to get, and it's time the rest of us have the confidence to say look, the face of this country is changing, that's no bad thing, and the New Zealander of the future isn't going to be either a Maori or a European, it's going to be an amalgam of all sorts of races and cultures and therefore totally unique.

Could you tell us about your relationship with Taiwan over the years?

I first visited Taiwan in 1992 and I have to say very much by accident. I was with a group of people visiting Japan and Korea and for some reason a few days in Taiwan was tacked on at the end. At that stage I knew very little about Taiwan. I knew the broad history and was totally unenthusiastic about going; I was like why the hell are we doing this at the height of summer? I don't really want to go to this sort of anachronistic state. I went there. I was blown away by what I saw and fell in love with the place immediately. I hadn't expected the level of economic and social progress. It was just after the lifting of martial law; I hadn't expected to see a country that was so clearly different and so clearly an entity in its own right. I think I imagined it was still in the days of immediately post-1949 and you know, then I was invited back the following year. My wife and I had a week up there, and it was just an extraordinary visit that cemented all those feelings. I've been back three or four times since, and I've become much more immersed in issues relating to Taiwan, and I've become much more angry about the way in which Taiwan is treated in the international community. It's got an impressive story to tell; it's one of the great nations of the world, and I find living where I do, and I can only imagine how people in Taiwan might feel, a huge sense of frustration that it's not able to play a full part in international affairs.

In 2000, partly to test the feeling here, I moved a motion in parliament congratulating President [Chen Shui-bian] on his election and expressing support for the relationship between the two countries, expecting it to be roundly defeated which would then lead me to raise the issue. Basically it slipped through. It caused a huge degree of embarrassment to the government of the day, but it was widely appreciated by those who support Taiwan. When I was there on another visit in 2003, we were received at the [presidential] palace by President Chen and at the conclusion of that meeting he said to us, somewhat I thought jocularly at the time, "You must come to my inauguration next year!" and of course we said, "Absolutely! Too right! Love to come!" thinking well that's all too far away. A couple of days after the election in March, I received a message from the Taiwan Office in Wellington extending an invitation to attend the inauguration, which I was delighted to do.

The Chinese embassy here approached my office while I was away, expressing more than grave concern that I was in Taiwan and that this was a gross interference in China's domestic affairs and that I shouldn't be supporting splittists and separatists and everything else, you know, the usual rhetoric. I came back to NZ and decided to make the story public. They were quite belligerent in their response. I said that in a democracy people have the right to freedom of movement, freedom of association and freedom of thought, something that I appreciate would be completely foreign to the Chinese. They didn't even back down at that point, they still went on about how Taiwan was an inalienable part of China, etc., etc. At that point I thought I'm going to seek the protection of the NZ foreign minister, so I raised it in the House and said as a NZ citizen I shouldn't be subject to this harassment by a foreign power and forced him to call the Chinese ambassador and give him a dressing down for China's interference. It's standard practice when NZ politicians or other senior officials go to Taiwan to get a letter of protest from the Chinese embassy. I just decided that enough was enough and this was, given that they'd phoned here, time to make the issue public. And I must say a lot of New Zealanders were horrified at it. They couldn't believe that that degree of bullying continued to this day and age.

A couple of things arose from this. One, I pick up a lot of sympathy among New Zealanders for Taiwan, and it's partly the big guy versus little guy thing. And the other thing is when later last year NZ was due to begin its negotiations with China over the Free Trade Agreement, there was the issue of the Taiwan minister's visa being withdrawn because, you know, it could be embarrassing. There was quite a reaction in NZ, people saying, "Hey, hang on! These are the guys that bully us! Witness that event earlier in the year, about our people going to Taiwan. Why the hell are we now kowtowing to them? Yes, we know we want a Free Trade Agreement, and we don't want to put that at risk etc., but just a minute, we shouldn't be just taking this lying down!" So there's a bit of feeling there. No one is seriously suggesting we should freeze China out as a result, but there is a mounting sense of annoyance that China is able to use its size and economic power to say to us jump, and we say how high?

How would you like to see relations between Taiwan and NZ develop?

I think NZ should be pursuing a much more active policy toward Taiwan, much more active government-to-government ex changes at various levels. We have very active business connections now through the respective business councils, and I think they need to be encouraged. I think also that NZ should be supporting Taiwan where it can on issues that are clearly outside the context of the political relationship and the example that comes to mind is Taiwan, for some years, has been trying to obtain observer status at the World Health Assembly which is part of the World Health Organization, and NZ's position is moving slowly; we're opposed but tending toward neutral. I think we should be taking a more active stance in supporting Taiwan on issues like this.

NZ has a very close political and economic relationship with China. We have an equally close, but different, relationship with Taiwan. Perhaps naively, I can't see why we are not able to pursue both to the max. It's not a statement on China's view of Taiwan, it's really a statement of NZ's interests, our friendship with both. I think that without rushing to the barricades, we ought to be able to push that a little bit further in a way that is handled with some sensitivity on both sides, but that ensures that the 23 million people of Taiwan actually have a stake in international affairs.

I think one of the drivers behind this is the now pretty strongly confirmed DNA evidence of a link between the Maori and Taiwanese aboriginals. The relationship between the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the Maori is strengthening; there was a protocol signed last year in respect of that. This is very much the direction in which I would like things to go. If you do all that, links between people and business, we'll eventually be led down the political path.

What kind of role would you like to see NZ play in the world and, in particular, in Asia?

I think NZ has to accept and say to itself pretty bluntly that it is a part of Asia. We know this inherently, but we're a bit cautious about saying it too loudly in case we upset some of those who don't really want us to be Asian. It's a basic insecurity among New Zealanders. There's still a group here that hankers for the days when we were part of a white commonwealth. But I think we have to commit to being Asian. We're a small country that has been historically able to punch above our weight. I think we need to look to work with other countries like us, democratic countries, to be the voice of reason, lacking vested interests, in international forums. I think that in a way that inevitably draws us close to Taiwan; we're similar in our make-up in that respect. Taiwan has a much stronger economic position than we have, but we have good credibility in the UN and other international organizations born of years of experience. My ideal NZ is one that, not quite the Switzerland of the South Pacific or anything like that, but a country that is recognized for the quality of its argument rather for the size of its force or its population.
 

From Lamps to Lady White Snake

The importance of Taiwan to New Zealand's (NZ) economy is irrefutable. NZ exported US$507 million worth of its goods to Taiwan in 2004, making it NZ's eighth largest export destination and representing a 12.5-percent growth from the year before. These goods ran the gamut from unwrought aluminium to meat and potatoes. In the same year Taiwan sold US$575 million worth of predominantly petroleum-based goods and machine parts to NZ, a 15-percent increase over the previous year, making Taiwan its 12th largest source of imports. Business is definitely on the boil between the two Pacific Rim neighbors, but only a generation ago it was a different picture.

Trade between the two nations began on a highly personal level with owner-operated businesses paving the way. The pioneering Kiwi trader in Taiwan was Cedric Jack Tse, whose company, Trade Span, started importing Taiwanese tinned pineapple and electrical goods in 1969. His sons now run an in-market inspection business from the same office their father rented 33 years ago. Compton Tothill arrived in Taipei in 1972, learned Mandarin, and with his background in synthetic textiles set up an agency to represent Taiwanese textiles in the major world markets. He introduced NZ lumber and board products to Taiwan in the late 1970s, distributed high-tech building materials and now offers consultation services to companies investing in both countries. Barrie Gorton started supplying New Zealand wholesalers with Taiwanese baby buggies and bicycles in the early 1980s. His son Tim moved the business to China in the early 1990s as their Taiwanese suppliers relocated there.

These days the business relationship has expanded well beyond just a handful of individual players; retailers in both countries stock the food and wares of the other as a matter of course. These well-established trade ties are now broadening into services such as tourism and education. In 2004, 27,000 Taiwanese visited Aotearoa, or the Land of the Long White Cloud as it is known in Maori, and stayed for an average 19 days, while over 3,000 Taiwanese students attended NZ educational institutions.

Since the success of the NZ film trilogy The Lord of the Rings , the country's film production expertise has gained international acclaim. In July 2004, NZ film production company Silverscreen and special effects house Oktobor signed a US$40 million deal with Taiwan's Equinox Film Productions that will bring an English-language version of the Chinese legend Lady White Snake to movie theaters across the world in 2008. Combining the culture and abilities of both countries is clearly the way to strengthening ties.