Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand's Layering of Strategic Communications (2016–2020)

Abstract:Around 2016, the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand governments began to disassemble the coherent and optimistic imagery that had hitherto signaled their strategic commitment to accommodating China within an interdependent, prosperous, and strategically stable Asia-Pacific. While Canberra and Wellington remain committed to constructive "bedrock" bilateral relations and still avoid explicitly positioning China as a direct threat in their strategic messaging, both governments have increasingly communicated (1) concerns about their strategic vulnerability and military insecurity that requires enhanced military potency; (2) pessimism that great power competition could disrupt Asia-Pacific stability, requiring strategic diversification and cross-bracing with "Indo-Pacific" partners; and (3) stronger official criticism on narrower, strategically circumscribed issue sets as the two nations attempt to set acceptable terms for anticipated relations of greater future complexity with China. The targets of this "layered" approach to strategic communications are not only Beijing and Washington, DC, but increasingly other important regional partners and domestic stakeholder audiences with diverse interests.