THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1978. U.S. attitude to N.Z.

Press, 26 April 1978, Page 20

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1978. U.S. attitude to N.Z.

The outlines of American foreign policy towards New Zealand. Australia, and the Pacific generally being put forward by Professor Henry S. Albinski in lectures and discussions in New Zealand and Australia are worth examining. Dr Albinski. who is professor of political science at the Pennsylvania State University, speaks as an academic, not as a public sen ant or an apologist for American Government views, but he has spent a great deal of his research dealing with State Department and Defence Department officials and is a very wellinformed obsener. His visit to this country’ is sponsored by the International Communication Agency, the successor to the United States Information Service. The fullest presentation of his views so far in New Zealand was at the meeting of the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs on Monday night, a report of which appears today. Professor Albinski agrees with what must be the impression of a great many people that the South Pacific does not figure prominently in American thinking. He quoted the former Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger, who, when asked u’hen he w’ould visit Australia (which by implication meant New Zealand as well) replied that he would go on his way to Antarctica. Henry Kissinger never went to Antarctica. The VicePresident of the United States, Mr Walter Mondale, will spend little more than 24 hours in New Zealand on his first visit here next month. It is Professor Albinski’s view that Australia and New Zealand merit the attention of second or third rank officials of the American Government. He thinks, however, that because of the closeness of the ties among these officials and officials of the New Zealand and Australian Governments, that the views of New Zealand and Australia are taken into account more readily in American policy-making.

When the policy-makers in the United States think about Australia and New Zealand at all, what do they con-

sider? The question may be put more bluntly: what role does the United States see New Zealand and Australia playing that serves American interests? American policy-makers would be genuinely surprised to be told that anything but self-interest was of primary importance in shaping the foreign policy of Australia and New Zealand. The United States itself is unable, because of its global concerns, to concentrate on the Pacific and South-East Asia, but because New Zealand and Australia are active in this region, America is reasonably content to allow them to act in a surrogate role. Their accepted presence would also avoid the sort of alarm that could occur if the United States suddenly intruded in a big way into the area.

What response should New Zealand make to this American view? New Zealand has its own interests to pursue in the Pacific and feels a particular responsibility for the area. It is as much in New Zealand’s interests as those of the United States that Great Power rivalries —between the United States and the Soviet Union, or between the Soviet Union and China —are kept to a minimum in the whole area. It is in New Zealand interests that development of the islands occurs. It is very much in New Zealand interests that extensive co-operation throughout the Pacific continues. If another country, such as the United States, likes to find these aims as serving its own ends that is a happy coincidence; yet there are possibilities of conflicts of opinion. To see New Zealand (or Australia) as a surrogate for American policy is an American privilege. It cannot be any part of this country’s thinking to see itself as a surrogate of American policy. New Zealand, the natural leader of the South Pacific, may find itself some time the buffer between the tiny populations of a myriad Pacific islands and the mammoth United States. In that event the present comfortable, but untested, relations between New Zealand and the United States would be really strained.