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access to Contemporary Southeast Asia
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Contemporary Southeast Asia Vol. 34, No. 2 (2012), pp. 249-73 DOI: 10.1355/cs34-2e
© 2012 ISEAS ISSN 0129-797X print / ISSN 1793-284X electronic
ANDREW BUTCHER
Joseph Nye defines soft power as "the ability to get what you w
through attraction rather than coercion or payment ... [arising] f
the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals and policies"
In listing the social indices of America's "soft power" Nye notes, int
alia , the following variables: immigration (specifically, the abilit
attract immigrants), film and television, and foreign students.3 If w
were to apply those same indices to New Zealand - a country th
249
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250 Andrew Butcher
is in almost no wa
is an English-spea
three factors. First
inflows of migran
Organization for E
Second, the New Z
persons aged 20-24
OECD5 and, withi
recipient of intern
film industry is un
billion (US$2.4 billion).7
New Zealand has numerous attributes which might enhance
its soft power efforts in Southeast Asia, but these attributes do not
become soft power qualities or assets just by virtue of their existence.
In an era in which both New Zealand's military capabilities and
diplomatic presence are being reduced due to budget cuts, soft
power becomes all the more important. And it becomes especially
important in Southeast Asia. New Zealand's economic security
is contingent on the safety of the sea lanes which pass through
Southeast Asia, and strategically New Zealand relies on a stable
region and a strong ASEAN.
This article is concerned with both Southeast Asia and ASEAN.
New Zealand's bilateral relationships with Southeast Asian countries
predate its relationship with (and the existence of) ASEAN. Moreover,
New Zealand's relationships with Southeast Asian countries differ
from one country to the next (economically, militarily and historically)
and from its engagement with ASEAN as an institution. Both the
multilateral/institutional engagement with ASEAN and the bilateral
engagement with Southeast Asian countries are important in their
own right. Sometimes this engagement is distinct; other times New
Zealand may use its bilateral engagement to influence its institutional
engagement with ASEAN.
Quantifying soft power is problematic. The number of international
viewers of the Rugby World Cup and foreign students, the value
of exported goods and services, the impact of the film industry all
tell us something about the individual strengths of these particular
soft power assets, but they do not tell us their combined strength
or their long-term effects.
By contrast, quantifying hard power is relatively easier. This
article begins by briefly noting New Zealand's "small ... but strong"
hard power capabilities. Given New Zealand's limited hard power, soft
power takes on added importance. Soft power can be aspirational ,
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New Zealand's Sofi Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 251
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252 Andrew Butcher
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 253
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254 Andrew Butcher
While soft power cannot be quantified in the same way as hard power
- such as in warships, dollars, or GDP - we may nevertheless
suggest that because of New Zealand's limited hard power, its soft
power becomes all the more important. Stephen Hoadley has suggested
that New Zealand's exercise of soft power is expressed in verse in
its national anthem [written in 1876]: "make our country good and
great" and "make her praises heard afar".20
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 255
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256 Andrew Butcher
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 257
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258 Andrew Butcher
of the Australia-Ne
to which New Zealand committed elements of all three services,
including the newly formed New Zealand Special Air Service (SAS);36
and reluctantly and modestly (in the form of a battalion), during the
Konfrontasi ;37 and Vietnam dining the Vietnam War (around 3,500
New Zealand military personnel served in South Vietnam between
June 1964 and December 1972);38 fourth by welcoming refugees from
Cambodia and Myanmar and large migrant populations from other
Southeast Asian countries, New Zealand has become a home for
many displaced Southeast Asians.
New Zealand's economic links with Southeast Asia are only part of
its engagement with the region. There are defence and aid ties to
Southeast Asia, and political ties to ASEAN, to which New Zealand
has been a Dialogue Partner since 1975, and through ASEAN's
subsidiary bodies, including the East Asia Summit (EAS), which
New Zealand joined in 2005. New Zealand's various soft power
attributes may be applied to anywhere in the world. So why does
New Zealand's soft power in Southeast Asia matter?
As the global centre of gravity shifts from the trans-Atlantic to
Asia, New Zealand will face stark choices between its history (i.e. th
United Kingdom) and its geography (the Asia-Pacific). Economically
New Zealand's ties with Asia are becoming deeper and thicker, but
perhaps also unbalanced. Its heavy economic reliance on China, to th
extent that it is now New Zealand's second largest trading partner
may seem to some observers as an inevitable consequence of th
remarkable pulling power of the world's second largest economy.
But New Zealand has suffered once before in relying too heavil
on one market at the expense of others. When the United Kingdom
moved its preferential treatment from New Zealand to Europe in
the 1970s, New Zealand's economy went into shock. Strengthening
economic ties is good in and of itself but it also has a larger
purpose.39 Strategic, diplomatic, educational, aid and defence ties,
alongside economic engagement, all reinforce each other. There ar
much more than mercantile reasons for New Zealand to strengthen
its ties with ASEAN.
We may consider New Zealand's relationship with Southeast
Asia as comprising three "s"': soldiers, students and sentiment.
New Zealand's values are demonstrated through the various forms
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 259
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260 Andrew Butcher
thirteen members)
numerically at lea
Zealand. The stabil
a region, the freed
of some of New Z
New Zealand's national interests. In the EAS, New Zealand is a
participant, has a voice and makes a contribution, which it would
not have, arguably, without either ASEAN centrality in any form of
regional architecture, or in the APT.
New Zealand's use of its soft power matters because, to a large
extent, that is all New Zealand has. Several thousand students came
to New Zealand under the Colombo Plan.45 It is New Zealand's soft
power, through these students especially, that have cultivated some
of the political elite in some Southeast Asian countries, especially
Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.46 New Zealand was not the only
country to educate Southeast Asians or defend Southeast Asian
countries. Yet New Zealand kept its troops in Singapore longer than
either the Australians or the British, and retains military ties with
both Malaysia and Singapore through the FDPA (as, to be fair, do
Australia and Britain). In education, the small-size of New Zealand's
population at the time of the Colombo Plan meant that most New
Zealand households had some contact with a Southeast Asian
student.47 And that goodwill counts for a great deal. The num
of students who came to New Zealand under the Colombo Plan,
or even as fee-paying foreign students at the same time, might be
diminishing in number and influence, but New Zealand's reputation
will, for a time at least, outlast them.
Yet is soft power enough? Even if there is a desire for New
Zealand to invest in more military hardware or to engage its
military more often and in more places, such a desire is not
realistic given the economic and political climate in Wellington.
Constrained economic circumstances require a suite of different
tools and responses. Conventional diplomacy, of course, plays an
important role. However, New Zealand's formal diplomatic efforts
are currently being severely culled through a cost-cutting exercise
and reorientation of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. But
is soft power sufficient to "project" New Zealand's voice? Does soft
power deliver for New Zealand's national interests? Does it sufficiently
demonstrate a willingness to commit to the security of Southeast
Asia, the stability of ASEAN, and the delicate balance required to
accompany a rising China?
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 261
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262 Andrew Butcher
of professional dip
across multiple tra
For New Zealand's
it is crucial that it b
with Southeast Asi
and briefly, five so
to its engagement
sheep and the silve
Students
Joseph Nye has argued that academic and cultural exchanges between
the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War played
a significant role in enhancing America's soft power.51 Along with
defence ties, New Zealand's educational ties with the region are the
longest and historically most resonant in Southeast Asia. Within the
OECD, New Zealand is the eighth largest recipient of international
students, though it has the highest per capita rate of international
students in the OECD at 15 international students per 1,000 people.52
Education is one of New Zealand's top five export earners. The vast
majority of overseas students in New Zealand (about 75 per cent)
come from Asia.
Under the Colombo Plan, New Zealand first educated Asian
students from India, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and in Southeast Asia
from the former British territories (Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak,
North Borneo), and Thailand,53 from the Plan's inception in 1950
(the first students arrived in New Zealand in 1951) until the 1980s,
when the educational and training work became integrated into
New Zealand's bilateral aid programmes.54 The Colombo Plan was
a Commonwealth initiative under which Commonwealth countries
(originally Australia, Britain, Canada, Ceylon [Sri Lanka], India, New
Zealand and Pakistan)55 educated Asia's elite as part of a broader
suite of activities designed to stem the tide of communism sweeping
across Southeast Asia:
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 263
members would have equal status. Initially the Plan was intended
to last only a few years."56
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264 Andrew Butcher
Outside of full-f
contributes in othe
through the English
whereby programm
come to New Zealand
New Zealand's aid b
are both similar and different to the Colombo Plan: similar in
cultivating relationships with potential leaders, different in that
is not done in the hope of stemming the flow of communism.
Soldiers
Soft power can also come in military garb, as it has done on several
occasions in the last sixty years. It continues to find form in the
FPDA and in New Zealand's collaboration with Malaysian and
Singaporean troops in Afghanistan; these provide tangible long-term
effects on goodwill on both sides.
New Zealand kept its troops for longer in Singapore than either
Britain or Australia and is still an active member of the FPDA. It
has also had a long-term role in training military personnel from
ASEAN countries. The FPDA may be more symbolic than strategic
in that it serves more as a "comfort pillow". However, symbolism
can be strategic too. The FDPA plays a small but important role
in New Zealand's relationship with Southeast Asia and illustrates
the importance of retaining alliances with specific states besides
maintaining political relations with a regional institution such as
ASEAN. The FPDA also connects New Zealand's historical engagement
with the region with its contemporary concerns, namely the stability
of Southeast Asia as a region and the security of its trading routes.
New Zealand's 2010 defence white paper describes the FPDA as
"New Zealand's most significant operational security link to Southeast
Asia ... [which] will continue to provide a valuable anchor for the
presence of our defence assets in the region".62 Regionally it has
benefits too: the FPDA provides a forum for cooperation between
Malaysia and Singapore, which might not otherwise happen.
Sports
Arguably New Zealand's biggest brand is its rugby team, the All
Blacks, and sport in general is a central part of New Zealand's
identity. Fitness in New Zealand, Charlotte Macdonald argues, was
and is about being "strong, beautiful and modern".63 New Zealand
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 265
has a great belief in teams: witness the overwhelming support for the
All Blacks during the 2011 Rugby World Cup and how that played
into a patriotic narrative about New Zealand "punching above its
weight" and showing itself off to the world.
Sport also plays an increasingly important role in the integration
of immigrants in New Zealand. In New Zealand, table tennis and
badminton teams have seen an increase in players from Asia. One
table tennis regional sports organization in Auckland notes that of
its registered players, 90 per cent are Asian, with the bulk from
China and the rest from South Korea.64 Football (or soccer) in New
Zealand has benefited from the arrival of Southeast Asians, while
cricket has benefited from Indian migrants.65 Sports, like religion,
crosses ethnic boundaries and national borders. The All Blacks have
played in Hong Kong and Japan, and New Zealand sports persons
have competed at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
"Rugby diplomacy" was in action in New Zealand just prior
to the start of the Rugby World Cup, when the Foreign Minister
hosted the Pacific Islands' Forum. The wider potential diplomatic
leverage of rugby is reinforced when one notes that the New Zealand
Foreign Minister is also responsible for the Rugby World Cup and
that during the Rugby World Cup, New Zealand diplomats were
diverted from their usual consular tasks abroad to provide support
for New Zealand's hosting of the tournament. As this author noted
at the time:
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266 Andrew Butcher
Sheep
One of the most distinguishable "Kiwi" attributes of New Zealand
is its sheep population. New Zealand has 40.1 million sheep, which
amounts to 10 sheep per person68 and the New Zealand's economic
engine are its primary industries (i.e. agriculture, forestry, environment
and natural resources, biosecurity and animal welfare, food safety,
fisheries).69 Each country has particular characteristics with which it
is associated abroad. These characteristics form part of a narrative
about a country, or reinforce existing held views. For New Zealand,
it may be argued that sheep could be read as a signifier for "clean
and green", for "100% pure", for "easy lifestyle"; recall the reasons
noted earlier as to why migrants choose to live in New Zealand. Take
those attributes further and particular political positions come into
view, including New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance or commitment
to addressing climate change, for example. The narrative about New
Zealand and its soft power thus becomes internally coherent and
consistent. This narrative then shapes expectations - recall further
the comments about New Zealand's soft power vis-à-vis Japan and
ASEAN, noted earlier - and become somewhat self-fulfilling.
Sheep are more than just a signifier: they contribute in multiple
ways to New Zealand's economy, including through tourism.
Genuinely, many visitors who come to New Zealand expect to see
sheep. Tourism to New Zealand is increasing from across Asia. In
2008, China overtook Japan to become New Zealand's fourth largest
tourist market70 and is projected to overtake the British and American
markets in spending by mid-2012 and in tourist numbers by 2014. 71
Tourism is a central plank of New Zealand's economic success, and
increasingly so as that success is tied to Asian markets.
As the Southeast Asian economies grow, so does the expectation
that these economies will provide an increasing number of tourists
to New Zealand. Concomitant with this is the ambition for greater
and better connectivity; increasing direct flights from New Zealand to
Southeast Asia is one feature of this ambition (to that end, Garuda
Airlines will resume direct flights from Jakarta to Auckland in late
2012).There is potential traffic the other way as well. New Zealand
is increasingly used as a gateway to and from Southeast Asia and
Latin America. Of all these indices, tourism rests most on how
New Zealand projects itself to the world, but it also depends on
exogenous factors outside New Zealand's control. Budget airline Air
Asia had a short-lived presence in New Zealand, but the combined
factors of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake (coinciding, unfortunately,
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 267
with Air Asia's initial offerings in New Zealand), the airline's own
economic troubles, and the global economic crisis, meant that i
did not last.
"Connectivity", to use the current vernacular, reinforces other
aspects of New Zealand's soft power: it eases travel for migrants,
students and tourists from Asia to New Zealand, and opens up
routes the other way for more New Zealanders to see, experience
and do business in Asia. Sheep are an attraction for tourists to New
Zealand; what they signify is an attraction for those who see New
Zealand's soft power as an important asset in Southeast Asia.
Robert Ayson argues "For many years we have been encouraged
to think first and foremost about New Zealand's interests in an
even deeper economic interaction with Asia. ... [T]hese mate
interests upon which a good part of New Zealand's economic
wellbeing appears to rest",72 dominate New Zealand's approach
Asia generally and say something about the value placed upon, a
sought from, New Zealand's bilateral and multilateral relationsh
with Asian countries. Indeed, New Zealand's tourism, education and
film-making industries are set within an understanding of economic
growth. The growth of tourists from Asia to New Zealand is not
just good for New Zealand's tourism industry; it is good for New
Zealand's economy. It is not incidental therefore that New Zealand's
Prime Minister is also the Minister for Tourism.
The Silver-Screen
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268 Andrew Butcher
Conclusion
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 269
NOTES
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270 Andrew Butcher
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 271
37 For details on New Zealand's contribution during the ¡Confrontasi , see Rolls,
"Growing Apart", op. cit., pp. 216-18.
38 New Zealand and the Vietnam War, New Zealand History Online , <http://www.
nzhistory.net.nz/war/vietnam-war> .
39 Robert Ayson, "Australia-New Zealand", in Australia as a Asia-Pacific Regional
Power: Friendship in Flux?, edited by Brendan Taylor (Oxford: Routledge, 2007),
p. 129.
40 Robert Ayson, "Interests, Values and New Zealand's Engagement with Asia",
Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Victoria University of Wellington, 19 July 2011,
<http://www.victoria.ac.nz/css/docs/Current%20Work/2011/Inaugural%20Lecture
%2019.07.11.pd£>, p. 5.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., p. 6.
43 Terence O'Brien, New Zealand and ASEAN: Current and Future Outlook
(Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, 1995),
p. 6.
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272 Andrew Butcher
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New Zealand's Soft Power in ASEAN and Southeast Asia 273
Auckland: A Report for the Auckland Regional Physical Activity and Sport
Strategy (Auckland: Massey University, 2009), p. 27.
65 Ibid., p. 28.
66 Andrew Butcher, "Rugby Diplomacy", The Interpreter: The Weblog of the Lowy
Institute for International Policy, 9 September 2011, <http://www.lowyinterpreter.
org/post/2011/09/09/Rugby-diplomacy.aspx>.
67 Tapu Misa, "Rugby - a sport with power to ignite and unite", New Zealand
Herald , 12 September 2011, <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.
cfin?c_id=466&objectid=10751077>.
68 Statistics New Zealand, "Myth 8: New Zealand has 3 million people and 60 million
sheep", 7 May 2007, <http://population.govt.nz/myth-busters/myth-8.aspx>.
69 For more see the website of New Zealand's newly formed Ministry of Primary
Industries <www.mpl.govt.nz>.
70 Tourism New Zealand, "China: Market Overview", 2011, <http://www.
tourismnewzealand.com/markets-and-stats/north-asia/china/>.
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