New Zealand pressed Cook Islands for months over China deals, OIA documents reveal

Winston Peters, left, and Mark Brown. Photo: RNZ/Pacific Islands Forum/123RF

New Zealand spent at least eight months asking to see agreements made by Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown with China, which are now at the heart of differences between the two nations.

The rift in diplomatic relations, which led to Wellington halting NZ$18.2 million in funding to the Cook Islands, is detailed in communication documents released under the Official Information Act from Foreign Minister Winston Peters' office.

The Cook Islands is a realm country of New Zealand, which means it governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides some assistance with foreign affairs, disaster relief and defence. Under the arrangement, New Zealand said it should have been consulted over the Cook Islands-China deals, on which Brown holds a different view.

At the end of May, three months after Brown went to Beijing to sign the four agreements, a briefing from New Zealand Foreign Affairs Ministry stated that "there is potential risk" that "elements" of its development programme may be undermined or put at risk by the agreements.

The documents from Peters' office, while heavily redacted, detailed close scrutiny of New Zealand's development programme in the Cook Islands by his officials. Between 2021 and 2024, this totalled $194.2 million in funding.

"This support is delivered through bilateral, regional and multi-country projects," one briefing stated.

"The assessment found that New Zealand's development embeds New Zealand as the preferred and indeed only partner for the Cook Islands across a wider range of sectors. New Zealand will be the largest donor to the Cook Islands for the 2025/26 financial year, with 63.1 percent of donor support coming from us."

The documents also showed the agreements, which included a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership arrangement (CSP), was the latest development in an increasingly strained relationship between Cook Islands and New Zealand.

Officials in New Zealand were particularly frustrated.

"There is a lack of openness in the relationship from the Cook Islands' side, and they are not consulting on matters of mutual interest and importance as required in a free association relationship," another briefing from January stated.

"There has been a noticeable downturn in engagement with New Zealand on issues of significant strategic concern."

The January briefing, specifically on the Cook Islands-China CSP, also stated that Peters even asked his Cook Islands counterpart Tingika Elikana "to share the text" eight months earlier in May 2024 when the pair met at a high-level bilateral meeting.

Meetings between New Zealand's High Commissioner in Rarotonga and senior Cook Islands officials that conveyed New Zealand's "deep concerns" were also referenced.

Overall, the documents pinpoint the pivotal disconnect between New Zealand and the Cook Islands understanding of their bilateral relationship. In particular, New Zealand officials have assessed the behaviour of the smaller nation, and Brown as its leader, to directly conflict with its obligations under the self-governing and free association arrangement.

"This ongoing resistance illustrates a fundamental disagreement between Prime Minister Brown and his key advisers and New Zealand on the nature of our constitutional relationship," a March briefing stated.

"They consider that, despite free association, shared citizenship and a shared sovereign, the Cook Islands is fully sovereign and independent. They consider that the free association relationship does not, and should not, constrain the Cook Islands.

"We fundamentally disagree."

The briefing, titled 'China and the Cook Islands elevated partnership: New Zealand's response', also said official respondence from New Zealand should state "that the continued absence of meaningful engagement by the Cook Islands government will signal to us, and to the people of the Cook Islands…that it is no longer committed to the free association relationship".

Since then, Peters has challenged Brown to call a referendum asking Cook Islands people whether they want to remain in free association with New Zealand.

Brown has also criticised New Zealand for being hypocritical - saying the larger nation did not consult Cook Islands on its foreign affairs developments.

He has also said that a major motivator in signing the agreements with China was the funding and development needs of the Cook Islands.