As Luxon heads to China, his government’s pivot toward the US is a stumbling block

Ahead of his first visit to China, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been at pains to present meetings with Chinese premier Xi Jinping and other leaders as advancing New Zealand’s best interests.

But there is arguably a degree of cognitive dissonance involved, given the government’s increasing strategic entanglement with the United States – specifically, the administration of President Donald Trump.

It was this perceived pivot towards the US that earlier this month saw a group of former senior politicians, including former prime ministers Helen Clark and Geoffrey Palmer, warn against “positioning New Zealand alongside the United States as an adversary of China”.

Luxon has brushed off any implied criticism, and says the National-led coalition remains committed to maintaining a bipartisan, independent foreign policy. But the current government has certainly emphasised a more active role on the international stage in closer alignment with the US.

After coming to power in late 2023, it hailed shared values and interests with the Biden administration. It then confidently predicted New Zealand-US relations would go “from strength to strength” during Trump’s second presidency.

To date, nothing seems to have shaken this conviction. Even after the explosive White House meeting in February, when Trump claimed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky was a warmonger, Luxon confirmed he trusted Trump and the US remained a “reliable” partner.

While Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters apparently disagreed in early April over whether the Trump administration had unleashed a “trade war”, the prime minister depicted the story as a “real media beat-up”. Later the same month, Luxon agreed with Peters that New Zealand and Trump’s America had “common strategic interests”.

Closer US ties

We can trace the National-led government’s closer security alignment with the US back to late January 2024.

New Zealand backed two United Nations General Assembly resolutions calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefires in Gaza. But Luxon then agreed to send a small Defence Force team to the Red Sea to counter attacks on shipping by Yemeni Houthi rebels protesting the lack of a Gaza ceasefire.

The government has also enthusiastically explored participation in “pillar two” of the AUKUS security pact, with officials saying it has “the potential to be supportive of our national security, defence, and foreign policy settings”.

In the first half of 2025, New Zealand joined a network of US-led strategic groupings, including:

To be sure, New Zealand governments and US administrations have long had overlapping concerns about China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

The Labour-led government of Jacinda Ardern issued a defence policy statement in 2018 explicitly identifying China as a threat to the international rules-based order, and condemned the 2022 Solomon Islands-China security pact.

Ardern’s successor, Chris Hipkins, released a raft of national security material confirming a growing perception of China’s threat.

And the current government has condemned China’s comprehensive strategic partnership with the Cook Islands – a self-governing entity within the New Zealand’s realm – and expressed consternation about China’s recent military exercises in the Tasman Sea.

But US fears about the rise of China are not identical to New Zealand’s. Since the Obama presidency, all US administrations, including the current Trump team, have identified China as the biggest threat to America’s status as the dominant global power.

But while the Obama and Biden administrations couched their concerns (however imperfectly) in terms of China’s threat to multilateral alliances and an international rules-based order, the second Trump administration represents a radical break from the past.

Not in NZ interests

Trump’s proposed takeovers of Gaza, Canada and Greenland, his administration’s disestablishment of USAID, sanctions against the International Criminal Court, and withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and the UN Council for Human Rights are all contrary to New Zealand’s national interests.

Similarly, his sidelining of the UN’s humanitarian role in Gaza, his demand for a Ukraine peace deal on Russian terms, and his assault on free trade through the imposition of tariffs, all conflict with New Zealand’s stated foreign policy positions.

And right now, Trump’s refusal to condemn Israel’s pre-emptive unilateral attack on Iran shows again his administration’s indifference to international law and the rules-based order New Zealand subscribes to.

It is becoming much harder for the Luxon government to argue it shares common values and interests with the Trump administration, or that closer strategic alignment with Washington balances Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

On the contrary, there is a real risk Trump’s apparent support for Vladimir Putin is viewed as weakness by China, Russia’s most important backer. It may embolden Beijing to be forward-leaning in the Indo-Pacific, including the Pacific Islands region where New Zealand has core interests.

A better strategy would be for New Zealand to reaffirm its friendship with the US but publicly indicate this cannot be maintained at the expense of Wellington’s longstanding commitment to free trade and a rules-based global order.

In the meantime, a friendly reminder to Luxon’s hosts in Beijing might be in order: that New Zealand is an independent country that will not compromise its commitments to democratic values and human rights.