New Zealand ‘must never be seen as a proxy’, former PM Helen Clark warns

ExclusiveNew Zealand ‘must never be seen as a proxy’, former PM Helen Clark warns

Calling the US Pacific strategy a ‘game of bluff’, Helen Clark urges Wellington to defend its independent foreign policy tradition

Now, the former prime minister has a warning for the country she once led: do not let the scramble for Pacific security deals crowd out its much-vaunted independent foreign policy tradition.

For decades, New Zealand’s foreign policy has rested on two pillars: independence from superpower blocs and a Pacific kept free of nuclear weapons. Both are now being tested.

“The Australians being in the market for nuclear submarines isn’t helpful – not that it’s clear they’ll ever get them, but what they’ll get is an American base for nuclear submarines,” said Clark, 76, who was in Singapore to deliver the keynote address at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ International Conference on Cohesive Societies Interlude event.