Author    Robert Ayson

​The truism that there aren't many votes in foreign or defence policy seems spot on for New Zealand’s 2020 general election. Less than a month from the October 17 polling day, there are few external policy musings on offer from the three largest parties in the current parliament. On New Zealand’s foreign and defence relations with the rest of the world, Spinoff’s Policy tracker is nearly empty.
 
The party websites bear out these gaps. If Labour is expecting to romp home under Ardern, there is little sign that foreign policy is part of the winning recipe.  A few general points about climate change and free trade agreements can’t compete with the emphasis on the international dimensions of the government’s covid response. National’s online pickings are even slimmer. The main policy page almost suggests the world isn’t out there, and even by a process of elimination your writer could not discover anything on defence and foreign policy.

Author    David Capie

​This week sees the end of Shinzo Abe’s remarkable second term as Prime Minister of Japan. When he resigned in 2007 after a scandal-plagued year as PM, few would have imagined that he would return to power five years later and go on to be Japan’s longest serving prime minister and one of the region’s leading statesmen.
 
Abe’s international legacy will be to have steered Japan through turbulent times in the region, navigating between what Michael Fullilove has called ‘a feckless America and a reckless China’. From the outset, Abe was clear in his ambitions. He told a Washington audience in 2013 “I am back and so shall Japan be.” Abe wanted to fashion a Japan that could lead and be a ‘rule maker’ as well as a ‘rule taker’. He wanted to prove that reports of Japan’s demise were exaggerated and that it ‘is not and never will be a tier-two country’. While he didn’t achieve all his goals, Abe’s leadership marked the return of a more confident Japan, a respected leader in regional diplomacy.