Political Roundup: What Japan’s foreign policy shifts mean for New Zealand

• Geoffrey Miller writes:

Japan is a country on the move.

Since World War II, Tokyo has largely been happy to outsource its security needs to Washington.

But this is now changing to a more equal partnership.

On Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called his country’s alliance with the United States ‘stronger than ever’.

For his part, US President Joe Biden, who hosted Kishida at the White House, said the United States was ‘fully, thoroughly, completely committed to the alliance’ with Japan.

The words from Kishida and Biden might seem like the usual diplomatic niceties, but behind the smiles from the two leaders was a quantum shift in Tokyo’s foreign policy positioning.

The war’s legacy and subsequent 1947 pacifist constitution help to explain why Japan has until now preferred its military to keep a low profile – a deal which has come at a bargain price.

Woods hails “massive” investment in infrastructure – and details show how “three waters” loom large in allocating the lovely lolly

Buzz from the  Beehive

“Critical” infrastructure projects to kick-start new housing developments and accelerate growth in eight parts of the country are being enabled by a $192 million Government investment.

The words “three waters” are generously sprinkled through the announcement from Housing Minister Megan Woods.

They are mentioned in every allocation recorded in a table in the press statement which shows how much is being dished out for what purpose for favoured projects in Lower Hutt, Nelson, Rangiora, Ngāruawāhia, Hastings, Motueka, Whanganui and Lake Hāwea.

Here’s hoping voters remember at voting time next year, eh?

The investment is expected to enable around 11,500 homes across several housing developments over the next 10 to 15 years, Megan Woods said.

Notes accompanying the press statement tell us the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund (IAF) is a contestable fund “of approximately $1 billion”.

Approximately? Don’t they know how much exactly?

Peters leads NZ away from trying to balance relations with US and China

A seismic shift is under way in NZ’s geopolitical relationships. Led by Foreign Minister Winston Peters, the Coalition government has eased away from the previous National government’s ready accommodation with China and the presumption that NZ could easily balance United States and China relations to a more hard-nosed approach.  Several elements have contributed.

First, a powerful pro-Beijing faction in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has lost influence.

Second, the present government is more attuned to current geopolitical shifts in NZ’s immediate north-west. Now there is a new, sharper understanding of the implications of a move by China into contacts with NZ’s immediate Pacific environment such as the Cook Islands.