Why this White House meet is one Jacinda Ardern probably never thought she’d have – Stuff

ANALYSIS: It hasnt taken the world very long to change. When Jacinda Ardern became prime minister in 2017 she probably didn't imagine that five years later she would be talking with US President Joe Biden about wanting to get much more US engagement in the Pacific. Or that Chinas furtive forays into the region would have become so blunt and open.

Yet this is one of the issues that will be foremost on the agenda for the White House meeting on Wednesday. It comes as the rule-based international order, which has been imperfectly upheld by the US since World War II comes under sustained pressure by China and outright attack by Russia.

Essentially what we are now seeing is the beginning of a fight over who sets the rules under which the world operates. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a significant speech last Thursday on the US approach to China, in which he laid out the challenge clearly:

China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it. Beijings vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the worlds progress over the past 75 years.

Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden arrive at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School to honour the victims killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

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China is not a nation that wishes plays by the rules of others. Viewing itself as the modern incarnation of an ancient and sprawling empire, it seeks to make its own rules. It wants its own institutions that others join. Despite being arguably the biggest beneficiaries of the global rules-based trading order led by the US (a point made by Blinken) Chinas view is that precisely because the current rules were shaped by the west, they are almost automatically inimical to Chinas interests.

In our backyard, the Pacific, the practical outcome of that is new security pact with the Solomon Islands, and a proposed sprawling economic and security deal for 10 Pacific nations and China. That comes on top of Chinese loans made to various Pacific nations over the past decade or so.

It is part of a broader, decades-long play to delegitimise the US in the Pacific and supplant it with China.

Thats why it will be top of the agenda.

More broadly, when Ardern meets with Biden it will be the culmination of many months of work, thrown into disarray by Covid, but secured nonetheless. The importance of having real face-to-face meetings cannot be overstated. They are a chance to build rapport and put a face to a name. They are also a chance for each leader to work out the cut of each other's gib. This is why leaders meet.

Prior to Donald Trumps venal America-First posture, there have been significant meetings with US presidents that have yielded results. John Keys visits with Barack Obama helped to further repair a relationship that has been on the mend for nearly 40 years since New Zealand went nuclear-free and then subsequently pulled out of the Anzus treaty.

The way the meetings work is that there are photos with the leaders before they head into the Oval Office and when they emerge they will sit on lounge seats and talk about what they talked about. The body language - and how comfortable Ardern and Biden are after that will be key to watch.

Ardern will also meet with Vice President Kamala Harris prior to meeting with Biden. It is expected that those conversations will revolve around gun control and space exploration. The development of New Zealands space industry, spear-headed by Rocket Lab could be one of the surprise talking points coming out of that meeting.

Ardern has been keen to hose down expectations from this meeting. The leaders will almost certainly not be emerging with any new initiatives or deals. They will also talk about trade, but the US domestic political landscape will not allow any new trade deals or market access in the short run. And of course, guns will be on the list after the Uvalde shootings, as well as Ukraine.

But with New Zealands part of the world becoming more contested, simply talking about what is going on and how the US can genuinely engage will be worthwhile. New Zealand is going to get closer to the US, it is going to be events-driven and thanks to Covid, this meeting will be the first in a new, geo-strategically contested world.

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Why this White House meet is one Jacinda Ardern probably never thought she'd have - Stuff