Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown survived a no-confidence vote in February over the deal with China. (EPA Images pic)

WELLINGTON : New Zealand’s government halted aid to close partner the Cook Islands today because of a row over agreements the Pacific island nation struck with China.

New Zealand “paused” the payments and would not resume them until the Cook Islands took “concrete steps” to restore trust, a spokesman for foreign minister Winston Peters said in a statement.

The self-governing Cook Islands, a country of 17,000 people, has a “free association” relationship with its former colonial ruler New Zealand, which provides budgetary assistance as well as help on foreign affairs and defence.

Cook Islands caught New Zealand off guard in February when it signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with China covering deep-sea mining, regional cooperation and economic issues.

Peters’ spokesman pointed to the “lack of consultation” surrounding the “agreements signed by the Cook Islands and China” as a reason for the aid pause.

“Trust and meaningful engagement are fundamental to free association,” he said.

New Zealand provided US$116 million (NZ$194 million) to the Cook Islands over the past three years, according to government figures.

It has paused a planned US$11 million development assistance payment for the next financial year.

“New Zealand will also not consider significant new funding until the Cook Islands government takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust,” Peters’ spokesman said.

“New Zealand hopes that steps will be taken swiftly to address New Zealand’s concerns so that this support can be resumed as soon as possible.”

The pause in funding comes as New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing tomorrow.

Speaking to reporters this morning, Peters said the funding pause was not timed to coincide with Luxon’s trip to China.

Peters said he discussed New Zealand’s concerns about the Cook Islands agreement during a meeting with China’s foreign minister Wang Yi earlier this year.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brown survived a no-confidence vote in February over the deal with China, blaming “misinformation” from New Zealand for destabilising his country.

“It becomes very clear this is not about consultation. This is about control,” he said at the time.

Former Australian diplomat Mihai Sora said Cook Islands was being “a bit cute”.

“And it’s not surprising that New Zealand has reacted in such a way,” the Lowy Institute analyst told AFP.

“New Zealand obviously wants to repair its relationship with Cook Islands. It wants to block China from gaining increased strategic access to the Cook Islands, but also essentially to its immediate neighbourhood.

“But if Cook Islands pushes closer to China in a way that threatens New Zealand’s national security, it’s really not possible to have such intimate ties.”

New Zealand also announced this year it would review aid to climate-threatened Pacific nation Kiribati, one of China’s closest friends in the region.

The review came after Kiribati’s president brushed off a planned meeting with Peters at the last minute.

“This was especially disappointing because the visit was to be the first in over five years by a New Zealand minister to Kiribati,” Peters’ office said at the time.

“For this reason, we are reviewing our development programme in Kiribati.”

New Zealand had given around US$57 million in aid to Kiribati since 2021, according to official figures, including money for “economic development and climate resilience”.

New Zealand has halted millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over the “breadth and content” of agreements the smaller Pacific nation made with China, officials from the New Zealand foreign minister’s office has said.

New Zealand, which is the Cook Islands biggest funder, won’t consider any new money for the nation until the relationship improves, a spokesperson for foreign minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Relations between other Pacific islands and their larger regional backers Australia and New Zealand have stumbled over ties with China in recent years as Beijing has vied to increase its Pacific sway.

But the latest move by New Zealand’s government was striking because it reflected growing friction between two countries with strong constitutional ties – Cook Islands is self-governing but shares a military and passports with New Zealand – over two countries’ diverging approaches to managing relations with Beijing.

Cook Islands prime minister Mark Brown told lawmakers in parliament on Thursday that the funding was “not halted, it’s paused,” and downplayed the significance of the amount frozen.

News of the NZ$18.2m ($11m) funding halt on Thursday, which emerged only when a Cook Islands news outlet saw its brief mention in a government budget document, is likely to prove difficult for New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, who is in China for his first official visit and is due to meet President Xi Jinping this week. Beijing has defended its Cook Islands pacts before, saying in February that the deals were not intended to antagonise New Zealand.

Brown made a pointed reference to Luxon’s China visit in parliament on Thursday, highlighting the New Zealand leader’s announcements of increased trade with Beijing and looser visa requirements for Chinese travellers. The Cook Islands leader said he trusted any agreements Luxon made in Beijing would “pose no security threat to the people of the Cook Islands” despite Avarua not knowing their content.

Separately the Cook Islands foreign ministry said in a statement the country was committed to restoring its high-trust relationship with New Zealand and appreciated the funding support received from Wellington.

In a report tabled in the Cook Islands parliament this week, the public accounts committee registered “concern” about a reduction of NZ$10m ($6m) in the government’s purse, the first known mention of the finance freeze. The money was earmarked for “core sector support”, which funds the Cook Islands’ health, education and tourism sectors – with audits by Wellington on how it’s spent.

The money is part of NZ$200m directed to the Cook Islands by New Zealand over the past three years as part of an almost 60-year-old arrangement. The links demand consultation by Cook Islands leaders with Wellington on its agreements with other parties that might affect the relationship and the deals with China were the first serious test of those rules.

The Cook Islands, population 15,000, has a large and lucrative exclusive economic zone, with Brown’s government exploring prospects for deep sea mining activity, and Cook Islanders can freely live and work in New Zealand. That prompted dismay in Wellington when officials learned of the raft of agreements Brown signed in February.

The agreements didn’t promise security cooperation between Beijing and Cook Islands, but they did pledge more funding from China for infrastructure projects and educational scholarships. Not all of the documents Brown signed were released publicly.

The spokesperson for New Zealand foreign minister Peters said on Thursday said the agreements illustrated “a gap in understanding” between the governments “about what our special relationship of free association requires”, which included consultation to ensure the preservation of shared interests.

The “breadth and content” of the deals and lack of consultation with Wellington about them in advance prompted a review of funding to the Cook Islands, Peters’ office said.

“New Zealand has therefore paused these payments and will also not consider significant new funding until the Cook Islands government takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust,” the spokesperson’s statement said.

New Zealand’s latest action was an “entirely avoidable consequence of Cook Islands’ strategic flirtations with China,” said Mihai Sora, analyst with the Australia-based thinktank Lowy Institute.

“It’s a bit cute to sign up to a comprehensive strategic partnership with China in 2025 and pretend there is no strategic angle for Beijing, given all the mounting evidence of China’s malign strategic intent in the Pacific,” he said.