Last week the Cook Island government’s plan to upgrade its strategic relationship with the People’s Republic of China made global headlines. The deal will open the way for dual-use infrastructure facilities in the Cook Islands.
The new deal has implications for Pacific security, but particularly for New Zealand, the United States, and Australia. It is a “frog in the pot” moment for New Zealand, which for years had been encouraging China’s involvement in the region and has its own strategic partnership agreement with China, signed in 2014.
The Cook Islands has strategic geography, abundant strategic minerals, and a vast maritime territory of 2.2 million square kilometers. It is also severely depopulated and infamous as a “mecca” for money laundering as well as registering ships in Russia’s shadow fleet, facilitating Iranian arms shipments, and North Korean smuggling networks. Its government is notoriously corrupt and unrepresentative.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown inked the deal for an Action Plan for Comprehensive Strategic Partnership 2025-2030 with China, despite strong opposition from within his own country, as well as from the Cook Islands’ closest partner, New Zealand.
The Cook Islands, along with Niue and Tokelau, is part of the Realm of New Zealand, a vast area of maritime territory that stretches from the Southern Ocean almost to the Equator. The Realm is like a Monroe Doctrine, but one with no teeth. New Zealand lacks any credible military and financial might to defend it, and China is steadily picking off the other members. The Cook Islands and Niue both signed a Strategic Partnership with China in 2014, and then a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2018.
Under the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration, the Cook Islands agreed to “work together and consult” with New Zealand on defense and national security matters of mutual interest. It is a non-binding agreement that was made by two partners in good faith, in a benign strategic environment. Yet the Cook Islands government refused to consult with New Zealand about the new agreement. China has warned that “third parties” should not try to disrupt the agreement.
Since 2018, New Zealand has undergone a “quiet shift” in its relationship with China, due to rising concerns about China’s foreign interference, espionage, and cyberattacks in New Zealand, as well as its encroaching security presence in the Pacific. In 2024, New Zealand rebuffed China’s request to update their Comprehensive Strategic Agreement.
The Cook Islands is in Free Association with New Zealand. New Zealand provides Cook Islands defense and foreign affairs support, but only at the specific request of the Cook Islands government. Cook Islanders use New Zealand passports, and their currency is the New Zealand dollar. More than 94,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, and 28,000 in Australia, while only 17,000 Cook Islanders are resident in the Cook Islands.
The Cook Islands government said it had sealed “partnerships with the China Ocean Sample Repository and the National Deep Sea Centre, bringing new expertise to our ongoing efforts in deep-sea exploration and sustainable ocean management.”
The Cook Islands has one of the most abundant sources of seabed minerals in the world, particularly cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese. The Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority (CISMA) said it held talks with the PRC government on minerals exploration during Brown’s visit to China. The president of China’s United Front proxy group, the China-Cook Islands Friendship Association, is on the advisory board of the CISMA, and has frequently visited China on people’s diplomacy events.
In a statement summarizing his visit, Brown extolled the partnership with the PRC, saying, “China has been steadfast in its support and contributions to the Cook Islands development priorities for 28 years. It has been respectful of Cook Islands sovereignty and supportive of our sustained and concerted efforts to secure economic resilience for our people amidst our various vulnerabilities and the many global challenges of our time including climate change and access to development finance.”
The Cook Islands is classed by the OECD as a high income economy and is not eligible for aid grants. It received a one-off NZ$4 million (US$2.2 million) gift from China for signing the agreement, which was not linked to any particular project.
The Cook Islands government stated that their discussions with China included plans for a multi-use transport hub in the Northern Cook Islands, inter-island transportation, and digital connectivity. The Action Plan document is less specific than that, but mentions maritime infrastructure, hydrography, disaster cooperation that would allow China to bring in military forces, and the targeting of local government for influence operations.
China has negotiated projects for similar dual-use facilities in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru. In 2022, China proposed a China-centered security agreement for the Pacific, excluding New Zealand and Australia. Although that region-wide pact hasn’t been formally signed, many of its conditions have now been met. It is a slow steady process of warming up the pot; by the time the frogs even notice, it is too late. China’s dual-use projects enable a level of deniability.
The Cook Islands was a logistics base for the Allied forces in the Pacific in World War Two. The United States built airstrips in Penrhyn in the Northern Cooks and Aitutaki Island in the Southern Cooks. Some 850 U.S. Marines were stationed in Aitutaki. New Zealand established 14 Coastwatcher stations across the Cook Islands, to track air and sea movements of the Axis powers in the Pacific.
China is working to establish a new order in the Pacific, setting up new institutions and undermining existing ones. It is trying to push the United States out of East Asia to break the strategic denial policies set in place at the end of the Cold War. To do so it needs to break the U.S. defense line along the island chains, and to cut off key U.S. partners New Zealand and Australia.
New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. have had warnings about China’s encroaching security presence in the Pacific for a long time. The Trump administration’s drastic foreign policy measures are extenuating the crisis in the Pacific security environment.
New Zealand’s government has announced that it is considering raising defense spending to reflect a “volatile” strategic environment. But even if it was agreed, the NZDF is so severely underfunded it would take years to put together a credible force. All of New Zealand’s diplomatic efforts to persuade the Cook Islands not to sign the Action Plan have failed. Are we finally at the moment of reckoning where New Zealand will find a way to rally to defend its interests in the Realm?
