This is the script for my video posted on October 9, 2026. Watch it on TikTok.
Many people only know New Zealand from Lord of the Rings. But geopolitically, it’s a fascinating case, because after decades of hedging between China and the West, it’s moving firmly to one side while tightening its hold on the islands tied to it, behaving less like a neutral small state and more like a regional power. So why are New Zealand’s geopolitical dynamics changing?
New Zealand’s history begins around the 13th century when Polynesian voyagers settled the lands of Aotearoa, which is what the Maori people call the islands. Explorers gradually surveyed the islands, and in the early 19th century whalers, sealers, traders, and Christian missionaries built the first permanent European presence.
As more British settlers, traders, and sailors arrived, lawlessness and unregulated land sales spread, and Britain wanted formal sovereignty anyway to keep other European powers out, while the Maori wanted protection from tribal violence, unruly Europeans, and unregulated colonization.
So in 1835, northern Maori chiefs declared independence, keeping sovereign authority for themselves while asking the British Crown for protection. To that end, in 1840 the parties signed the Treaty of Waitangi, whose two versions said different things. In English, the chiefs ceded sovereignty to Britain, but in Maori, they only let the Crown govern while keeping full authority as chiefs. Britain proclaimed sovereignty over the whole country that May, and that gap still shapes New Zealand politics today.
Unfortunately, by 1844 many chiefs had grown dissatisfied with the treaty’s outcome, particularly new British customs duties that drove ships away from the Bay of Islands, and that the capital was moving to Auckland, which they perceived as breaches of the agreed upon terms, on top of their feeling that the Maori had lost the authority promised to them.
In protest, Chief Hone Heke repeatedly cut down the British flagstaff at Kororareka after the British put it back up. After the fourth such incident, Maori forces attacked and war broke out with British forces. Some Maori backed the British, but the conflict spread into multiple major battles over ten months, culminating in a peace settlement in 1846.
For decades, the Maori continued to fight back against the colonial government’s theft of land and general maltreatment of the Maori people. Several different wars broke out, and through massive military deployments, scorched earth tactics, and mass confiscation of fertile Maori land, many Maori communities were eventually defeated and dispossessed.
In 1881, the Maori King Tāwhiao, who had held out for nearly two decades in the independent King Country that had been largely closed to European settlement, laid down his arms and declared the end of conflict. Leaders later opened up the region by agreeing to let the main trunk railway through.
After a long depression in the 1880s, the country became remarkably prosperous and progressive. In 1893 it became the first self-governing country where all women could vote in national elections. In 1898 it established old-age pensions, laying an early foundation for the modern welfare state. And it only grew closer to Britain, deploying troops overseas for the first time during the Boer War. These trends only continued into the 20th century, even as the country slowly became distinct from Britain.
World War I changed things though. New Zealand sent nearly 100k troops overseas, about 9% of its entire population, and in 1915 forces from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC, landed in Ottoman Gallipoli, suffering catastrophic casualties. New Zealand troops also fought heavily on the Western Front and in the Middle East, and more than 18k never came home.
The ANZAC campaign in Gallipoli in particular created an incredibly close bond with Australia that still shapes both countries’ militaries today, even if New Zealanders will be the first to tell you they’re not Australian.
New Zealand was actively involved in WW2 as well, after which the New Zealand Parliament finally adopted the full legislative independence from Britain that it had been offered back in 1931.
But as the Cold War began, with mainland China newly communist, war breaking out in Korea, and lingering fears of a rearmed Japan, Australia and New Zealand formally allied with the US for the first time under the 1951 ANZUS Treaty. From 1964 to 1972, New Zealand sent over 3000 troops to Vietnam in support of the US war effort.
In 1973, Britain joined the European Economic Community, and New Zealand lost the guaranteed British market that its farm economy had been built around. It had already started trading with Asia, but just as it was getting more involved in the region militarily, it was now forced to diversify its economy there in earnest.
Meanwhile, the Cook Islands and Niue became self-governing in free association with New Zealand in 1965 and 1974 respectively, and these will be very important later.
In the 1980s, New Zealand’s Labour government under Prime Minister David Lange and Finance Minister Roger Douglas worked to deregulate markets, abolish government subsidies, and convert government departments into state-owned companies, among other things. This brought an already export-dependent economy exposed to global competition, making it more competitive but also more exposed to trade shocks.
Lange’s government also barred nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships from visiting New Zealand ports, a policy driven by a huge grassroots anti-nuclear movement. In early 1985, it turned away the American destroyer USS Buchanan because the US wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it carried nuclear weapons.
That July, the activist organization Greenpeace had a ship in Auckland Harbour that was meant to lead a protest flotilla against French nuclear weapons testing in French Polynesia, and agents of French intelligence bombed the ship to prevent it, killing one person.
The US suspended its ANZUS Treaty obligations in 1986 in response to New Zealand’s anti-nuclear agenda, and New Zealand passed the Nuclear Free Zone Act in 1987 to make the prohibition permanent.
In general, New Zealand became far more geopolitically independent in this period. Britain had hung it out to dry, and it had no interest in following the US on nuclear weapons, so it paved its own way. But it never actually left the Western sphere, staying in the Five Eyes intelligence network and retaining its alliance with Australia.
But in 2008 New Zealand became the first developed country to sign a free trade agreement with China. This was incredibly valuable, and today China buys almost 20 billion New Zealand dollars of its goods per year, about as much as the US and Australia combined. But it also made New Zealand heavily dependent on a single market, which for an export-driven economy means any major disruption to that trade could do serious damage.
To hedge, New Zealand restored close military ties with the US in the early 2010s. The current government has explored joining the non-nuclear second pillar of AUKUS, but the opposition Labour Party has pledged not to join AUKUS in any form. With the 7 November election tightly contested between Labour and the governing National Party, it’s possible that Labour could win and close that door.
The parties in general have very different perspectives on foreign policy. Labour tends to view foreign policy as an extension of identity, while the New Zealand First coalition argues that the country should focus on national interests and consider getting rid of the nuclear prohibition.
But both major parties broadly agree that New Zealand needs a stronger military, especially after Chinese warships held live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea with little warning in 2025, and even as New Zealand relies so heavily on Chinese trade. The government’s 2025 Defense Capability Plan warns that geographic isolation no longer shelters New Zealand from threats like it once did and aims to roughly double defense spending to 2% of GDP.
Both parties also back close defense ties with Australia, and in March 2026 the government committed to building an integrated Anzac force by 2035. Ties with the US are rockier, with the US now hitting most New Zealand exports with a 12.5% tariff.
But in February 2025, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China without consulting New Zealand, making deals on infrastructure, seabed minerals, and maritime cooperation, all without any clauses on security. New Zealand paused 18.2 million New Zealand dollars in development funding in response and extended the pause in late 2025.
It took until April 2026 for a Defense and Security Declaration to be signed, in which the Cook Islands named New Zealand its partner of choice on security and promised to come to them first, after which New Zealand restored funding. And in September, the US and New Zealand agreed to co-fund a new port in the Cook Islands tied to a US critical minerals deal.
Meanwhile, the island of Niue was recognized by Germany as a sovereign state in early 2026. The Cook Islands and Niue govern themselves in free association with New Zealand, and both are potential openings for Chinese influence.
New Zealand is beginning to behave like a true regional power. But this also comes with responsibility and complication that it would probably prefer to avoid. The truth is, it never really split from the US, and it’s now realizing that relying so heavily on China for its prosperity leaves it with less room to maneuver than its independent reputation suggests.
Keep reading
- Why is resource-rich Papua New Guinea so poor?
- Why do the US and China want control over Micronesia?
- Why is Guam critical to the US?
I’m writing a book called Groundwork about the buried history beneath geopolitics. Join the waitlist to hear when it has a publisher, a cover, and a release date.