9 - Warmth Without Depth: New Zealand and the Philippines

Summary

Introduction

Although the Philippines achieved independence in 1946, it was the growth of regionalism in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s that prompted New Zealand to develop closer relations with Manila. As the war in Vietnam drew to a close, nations in and outside Southeast Asia began seeking alternatives to the military alliances remaining from earlier wars, including alternatives to the South-East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) created under the Manila Pact in 1954. There was also a perceived need to draw Japan away from its post-WWII isolation and to engage it peacefully in the economic and regional development of Southeast Asia. Thus SEATO, ECAFE (Economic Commission for Asia and Far East), and the Colombo Plan were augmented by new regional and intra-regional organizations. From 1966 to 1973 ASPAC (the Asian and Pacific Council) brought together Japan, (South) Korea, China (“Nationalist”), (South) Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia, with Laos as an observer. In parallel a host of smaller organizations were begun to develop intraregional habits of consultation and cooperation.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) followed in 1967, with Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines seeking to develop cooperation within the region, not in security and defence, but rather on economic progress, political stability, and regional issues. As New Zealand sought to develop an enduring relationship with ASEAN, it was increasingly anomalous that New Zealand had a resident embassy, available for day by day consultations at a working level, in the other four ASEAN capitals, but not in Manila.

Frequent visits to Manila were made by New Zealand ministers and officials to attend international and regional meetings as Manila became a conference centre of the region. This made the absence of a resident embassy all the more conspicuous. Moreover from 1970 onwards, the Philippines began buying 5 per cent of all New Zealand's dairy exports — a significant amount of trade for the New Zealand economy at the time as it was narrowly based in terms of export markets and commodities. When the New Zealand Dairy Board added its considerable weight to the political and security concerns of the then New Zealand Department of External Affairs to take a more pro-active part in regional affairs, a momentum developed to strengthen the bilateral relationship tangibly through full diplomatic representation.