The Chinese have decided to play us at our own game.… and - surprise, surprise - we don’t like it.

For decades New Zealand has been provocatively flying military aircraft and sailing warships close to China and through their EEZ.  

But, now we’re panicking because the Chinese have dared to send two warships and an oiler into the Tasman Sea.

It probably wasn’t a coincidence that a week earlier an Australian Airforce P-8A Poseidon aircraft carried out so-called ‘routine surveillance’ around the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

Last September the New Zealand Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs and their Australian counterparts chose to deliberately provoke China by having the HMNZS Aotearoa and the guided missile destroyer HMAS Sydney sail through the Taiwan Strait in the company of Japanese warships. They were on their way home from the biennial Rim of the Pacific 2024 (RIMPAC) exercise.

Last year RIMPAC deputy commander; Commodore Alberto Guerrero, made it clear that the World’s largest maritime exercise involving up to 30 countries, over 50 warships and submarines, over 200 military aircraft, and more than 25,000 personnel, is intended to send a strong message to China.

Following the previous RIMPAC 2022 exercise an RNZAF P-3 Orion carried out ‘surveillance’ patrols in the South China Sea as the HMNZS Aotearoa travelled through the area.

In 2018 the frigate Te Mana was challenged by the Chinese Navy as it deliberately sailed close to the disputed Spratly Islands. Similarly, the year before the government chose to provoke China by approving the HMNZS Te Kaha’s passage through the Taiwan Strait as one of 17 warships in a UK-USA carrier strike group.

All of these provocations would have been proposed by defence and foreign affairs officials before being given approval by the government.

In each case the deployment of New Zealand and Australian military resources so close to mainland China was publicly justified by the claim that it was done in support of the maintenance of the rules-based international system, and to demonstrate support for the unrestricted freedom of travel through, and overflight over, international waters.

Unsurprisingly. China used the same justification for its recent excursion into the Tasman Sea.

The disruption of international air travel by military live firing exercises is also not a new phenomenon.  During RIMPAC live firing exercises in 1992, the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens threatened to shoot down a Qantas 747 flight from Los Angeles to Sydney carrying 326.

No prior notification was given that live firing would be occurring in the area, and without warning the Qantas pilot was told that unless he changed course, hostile action would be taken.

The presence of the Chinese vessels has provided an opportunity for our military and foreign affairs establishment to justify expensive new military equipment purchases. The item at the top of their shopping list is the replacement of the Navy’s two ANZAC frigates. Australia has been pressuring us to join their new $10 billion large frigate project.

Despite huge cuts in public spending, Minister of Defence; Judith Collins, wants to increase this country’s spending on the military from the present $6 billion a year to around $8.25 billion a year for the next 4 years.  Yet, defence already takes the 7th largest slice of government spending.

At around $6 billion a year, present defence spending is more than the total combined spend on the Police, Justice, the Courts, Oranga Tamariki, Te Puni Kokiri and Conservation.

This is not the time to be making impulsive and expensive military purchases, or to be joining a new defence pact led by an erratic United States against our biggest trading partner.

In the last months the new Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the foundations of the post-WW2 World order; damaging long-standing military alliances and actively subverting the international rules-based system.

These actions have undermined the basis of New Zealand’s 2023 Defence Policy and Strategy Statement. Like the Europeans, we can no longer view the United States as a reliable ally.

This seismic geo-political shift requires us to have a ‘first principles” reassessment of what our real defence needs are, rather than making unwise decisions on new funding for more of the same.