The Realm of New Zealand is not an open relationship.

No Invasion, No Charm Offensive—Just Clear Consequences and Cold Reality.

So the Cook Islands government wants to strengthen its ties with China by signing a partnership agreement. However, Prime Minister Mark Brown’s government pursued this deal without meaningful consultation with New Zealand, despite the expectation that both countries will engage openly on matters affecting the relationship. This has, naturally, led to tensions.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has described the situation as a dispute, while Brown insists that the Cook Islands have acted within their rights as a sovereign nation. The real issue is not whether the Cook Islands are entitled to make foreign policy decisions. Of course they are. Rather, it is whether they can continue to enjoy the privileges of free association while acting without reference to us in such matters.

Our connection with the Cook Islands did not arise from conquest, oppression, or exploitation, but from a series of voluntary requests from the Cook Islands' own leaders for British protection in the 19th century. By the 1860s, local chiefs, particularly in Rarotonga, became increasingly concerned about the growing influence of France and its potential to exert control over the islands. The Cook Islanders petitioned Queen Victoria multiple times for British sovereignty. These efforts culminated in 1888, when the Cook Islands were formally declared a British protectorate.

Britain was never an enthusiastic administrator and in 1901, responsibility for the Cook Islands was transferred to New Zealand. The Cook Islands remained in the imperial fold but under our jurisdiction. Over the following decades, New Zealand provided infrastructure, governance and economic support. This distinguishes the Cook Islands from other nations that endured colonial exploitation, land alienation and oppression.

The Cook Islands was hardly our most urgent priority, but it laid the foundation for the eventual move to self-government while remaining part of the elusive concept that is the “Realm of New Zealand” in 1965.

The countries are now freely associated. Under the terms of that association, Cook Islanders have New Zealand citizenship while exercising self-rule.

This has given the Cook Islands advantages that many of its Pacific neighbors can only envy. Unlike fully and substantively independent island nations such as Samoa, Tonga or Fiji, Cook Islanders have unrestricted rights to live, work and access healthcare and education in New Zealand. Unlike their neighbours, Cook Islanders may participate in a developed economy while maintaining their homeland as a self-governing entity. The arrangement also spares the Cook Islands from the burdens of maintaining a military as New Zealand law states that we retain ultimate responsibility for the defence and security of the islands.

Economically, the Cook Islands have benefited from decades of New Zealand aid, including direct budgetary support and ongoing assistance for infrastructure, disaster relief and governance support​

Where citizens of countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu face existential threats from climate change without a clear pathway for resettlement, Cook Islanders already hold New Zealand passports and can relocate freely if necessary.

From New Zealand’s perspective, however, the free association arrangement with the Cook Islands is a one-sided exercise in goodwill. We gain almost nothing of substance in return. The Cook Islands offers no significant economic or trade benefits and is not even geographically close - they are 3,000 km away from us!

Suggestions of strategic value are questionable and we have never sought to use the relationship to extend our small geopolitical influence. Britain certainly never saw the Cook Islands as particularly significant, certainly not in the way it viewed places like Singapore, Hong Kong or even Fiji. The simple fact is that if it was really a geopolitical prize, responsibility for them would never passed to us in the first place.

The current arrangements exist not because they serve New Zealand’s national interests. They have been maintained out of a sense of historical responsibility and goodwill.

If the Cook Islands would like to have a new patron in China, it is fair to ask why we should continue in that role. If the Cook Islands wants to align with Beijing, New Zealand has little reason to hold on. If we are expected to underwrite the Cook Islands' prosperity then it is fair to expect no secretive deals that undermine the relationship.

And just to be clear, it not unreasonable for New Zealand to expect consultation from the Cook Islands, even if New Zealand does not always consult the Cook Islands on its own foreign policy decisions. It’s not the most diplomatic way to put it, but the Cook Islands is the junior partner in this relationship. They are the party that benefits from free association, not us.

Our foreign policy decisions rarely, if ever, materially and directly impact the Cook Islands in the way that the Cook Islands’ China deal potentially affects New Zealand. New Zealand does not depend on the Cook Islands for security, economic support or political legitimacy. This creates a natural expectation that when the Cook Islands makes major foreign policy moves, it should consult with New Zealand first.

If the Cook Islands finds this expectation unreasonable or hypocritical, there is a simple solution: they are free to leave the relationship entirely. Unlike a colonial arrangement, free association is voluntary. There is nothing to stop the Cook Islands from declaring full independence if it wishes to be free of our supervision.

What is not reasonable is for the Cook Islands to reap all the benefits of free association while refusing to meet our reasonable expectations. It cannot expect to be treated as an independent power while still holding onto the advantages of association with New Zealand. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

The one thing New Zealand should not do is expend any effort to keep the Cook Islands in the fold. If their government has decided that their future lies with China, then it is not our job to try to convince them otherwise. That means no negotiation, no new incentives and no diplomatic charm offensive, no special aid packages. All that New Zealand should do is make clear the consequences of casting their lot with Beijing.

Trying to hold on to the Cook Islands would be a waste of time, effort and political capital. If they truly believe China will be as generous and benevolent a patron as New Zealand has been, then they are welcome to make that call. New Zealand should not indulge in sentimentalism about the relationship if it’s not appreciated by the other party.

And if the Cook Islands later find that they have made a mistake, they will have to live with the consequences of their decision.

The bottom line is that New Zealand has not impoverished or exploited the Cook Islands, plundered their resources or oppressed their people. We have no lingering moral obligation to make things right. That kind of framing, where a former colonial power is expected to continue subsidising a smaller nation out of historical guilt, is wholly inapplicable here. And yet, too often, liberals reflexively reach for this narrative, as if every post-colonial relationship is defined by victimhood and redress.

In some ways, this was inevitable. It is legitimate for the Cook Islands to maximise the opportunities available them. But if they do so as a fully and substantively independent nation, they must also be willing to stand on their own feet. Alternatively, if they still value the partnership with New Zealand enough to act accordingly?

They cannot have it both ways.