[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 2, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          THE UNITED STATES AND NEW ZEALAND: CIVILITY RESTORED

                                 ______


                          HON. JAMES A. LEACH

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 2, 1994

  Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, building on progress made by President 
Clinton and Prime Minister Bolger at the APEC summit last November, the 
United States announced on February 18 that it is restoring senior-
level contacts between United States officials and their New Zealand 
counterparts for discussions on political, strategic, and broad 
security concerns. This will result in the first high-level bilateral 
dialogue between New Zealand and the United States in almost a decade. 
This Member strongly supports that decision. It has been long past due.
  Most Americans are probably unaware of what the U.S. ban was all 
about. Briefly, in 1985 New Zealand moved to compromise the integrity 
of the Australia-New Zealand-United States Alliance [ANZUS] by adopting 
a strict anti-nuclear policy, subsequently enacted into legislation, 
which prohibited U.S. Navy ship visits by nuclear powered or 
potentially nuclear armed vessels. In reaction, the U.S. suspended its 
ANZUS obligations to New Zealand and sharply restricted high-level 
dialogue on foreign policy and security. Until last Friday, that policy 
remained in place.
  Fortunately, the flap over ship visits did not disrupt our overall 
bilateral relations. After all, the ties that bind our two peoples 
remain strong: a common heritage rooted in democratic institutions and 
frontier immigrant traditions, as well as our allied status in every 
principal engagement of the century. We cooperate on an impressive 
panoply of issues, ranging from the crucial world trade talks to human 
rights to environmental protection and Antarctic research. And our 
economic ties continue to deepen, with two-way trade rising to about 
$2.7 billion and the United States becoming New Zealand's second 
largest direct foreign investor.
  In foreign policy and broad international security, the U.S. and New 
Zealand enjoy an enormous commonality of interests. The U.S. values 
Wellington's experienced counsel in the South Pacific Forum, its 
regional leadership role, and continued security cooperation in 
Southeast Asia. More broadly, New Zealand's tradition of good global 
citizenship stands as a beckoning model for all. We welcome in 
particular New Zealand's recently increased international activism, 
such as its vigorous participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations and 
leadership on the United Nations Security Council.
  The ANZUS rift with New Zealand did not affect overall United States 
strategic engagement in the Pacific. But the end of the cold war has 
made effective multilateral cooperation and institution-building more, 
not less, important to advancing U.S. interests in the region. Thus 
ANZUS remains an important trans-Pacific anchor for the United States, 
even as the region develops new means and institutions, such as APEC, 
to help meet the compelling challenges of our time.
  For many years this Member endeavored in the strongest possible terms 
to impress upon the executive branch that there could be no prospect 
for restoring security ties while restrictions on political access 
remained in place. They were offensive to New Zealand sensibilities and 
frankly counterproductive. Last year the new administration appeared to 
recognize such and initiated a lengthy policy review, the results of 
which are now evident.
  In this regard, it is to the credit of President Clinton, Assistant 
Secretary of State Winston Lord, his deputy Mike Owens, the East Asian 
and Pacific Affairs office at the Department of Defense and Admiral 
Larson--the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command--that a change in 
U.S. policy was finally effected.
  Likewise, the support and understanding of our staunch ally 
Australia, which itself outfaced very considerable anti-nuclear 
pressures in the mid-1980's and with whom we consulted very closely on 
this issue, is much appreciated. In addition, New Zealand's very able 
and very fondly regarded Ambassador in Washington, Dennis McLean, has 
worked tirelessly over the past several years to restore civil 
political discourse.
  But as the administration made clear, even with civil discourse 
restored, renewed bilateral security ties will remain problematic until 
Wellington is prepared to come to grips with its own increasingly 
anachronistic anti-nuclear ban. Here we all recognize that won't be 
easy. The divisive and emotional politics of the issue are well 
understood in Washington.
  One unlikely outcome is a unilateral resumption of security 
cooperation by the United States. Despite enormous fondness for New 
Zealand, there is no Congressional dissent from the principle of 
alliance responsibility. Likewise, the Congress remains supportive of 
one of the crucial keepers of the peace in this century--the U.S. 
Navy--and our global policy of neither-confirming-nor-denying the 
presence of nuclear weapons [NCND].
  Nevertheless, assuming a majority of New Zealanders still want to 
have security relations with the United States, as virtually every 
opinion poll since 1985 has shown, a healing of the ANZUS rift can 
still be realistically contemplated.
  After all, the taproot of Wellington's novel anti-nuclear policy 
stemmed from New Zealand, indeed world, doubts about the sincerity and 
capacity of President Reagan in his first years in office to advance 
arms control. Yet in partial measure Reagan's Evil Empire doctrine has 
been vindicated by history and subscribed to by a new generation of 
Russian democrats. It also led to a new era of progressive U.S. 
leadership on arms control, from the INF treaty to START I and START 
II. The United States now supports a comprehensive test ban treaty and 
has proposed eliminating the production of fissile material for nuclear 
weapons. All tactical nuclear weapons have been removed from U.S. 
surface naval ships. Even the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone [SPNFZ], 
long supported by Canberra and Wellington but bitterly opposed by the 
Pentagon, is now under very active policy review.

  In other words, through American leadership on international arms 
control, the United States has effectually removed the original 
strategic concerns underlying New Zealand's antinuclear ban. Those 
concerns cannot logically be the basis for New Zealand objections to 
renewed security ties.
  Likewise, by removing a ban on high-level political contacts, the 
United States has dramatically improved the diplomatic and 
psychological climate for considering an eventual resolution of the 
nuclear issue.
  While we all hope that there will eventually be some movement on this 
issue in Wellington, Americans recognize the genuine and strong public 
antipathy in New Zealand to nuclear weapons, as reflected in its 
antinuclear legislation. Given the changed strategic landscape, this 
Member can see no reason to ask New Zealand to compromise its core 
principles against nuclear weapons. It is a given of New Zealand public 
opinion and public policy that we must respect. And those principles 
need not necessarily conflict with our policy of NCND.
  New Zealanders might then reasonably ask, what's the problem? My 
sense is that its chiefly in the ban on nuclear powered warships, the 
only such legislation in any country of the world. It clearly restricts 
the operational flexibility of the U.S. Navy. While over 90 percent of 
the 148 United States vessels to visit New Zealand waters between 1960 
and 1984 were conventionally powered, some 10 nuclear propelled vessels 
did make port calls during that time. While the United States would 
undoubtedly strive to respect New Zealand sensibilities on this issue, 
it is impossible to imagine having normal military-to-military 
cooperation or return to an alliance relationship, if some of our ships 
can't visit.
  Because this problem appears more psychological than substantive, 
many in Washington were hopeful that the December 1992 report of the 
authoritative and impartial Somers Commission on nuclear propulsion 
safety would have stimulated greater domestic debate in New Zealand. 
Nonetheless, the findings of the report remain timely and significant.
  I would only quote from the first finding of the Commission:

       The presence in New Zealand ports of nuclear powered 
     vessels of the navies of the United States and United Kingdom 
     would be safe. The likelihood of any damaging emission or 
     discharge of radioactive material from nuclear powered 
     vessels is so remote that it cannot give rise to any rational 
     apprehension.

  And as the Somers Commission also pointed out, codes and regulations 
governing visits by nuclear powered ships would be entirely under New 
Zealand's sovereign control.
  From a congressional perspective, the conceptual framework for 
resolving the ANZUS rift appears clear. With normal relations now 
restored by the Clinton administration, the question for New Zealand to 
decide is how it sees the world and Wellington's role in it; whether 
its aspirations for a more humane, prosperous, and stable world order 
includes mutually advantageous security cooperation with the United 
States.
  As America looks forward to working with its friends in building a 
new Pacific community, now is the time in New Zealand-United States 
relations to emphasize our shared heritage, our mutual 
responsibilities, and our common view of the future. Now is the time to 
underscore our mutual confidence and respect by working together to 
reinvigorate the ANZUS Alliance.

                          ____________________