Cook Islands, Canada, Taiwan, and the true nature of sovereignty
The former New Zealand colony is risking a peaceful, lucrative relationship with its benefactor in exchange for becoming the center of conflict — meanwhile, Canada knows who's buttering its bread
I’m not a big fan of “spheres of influence.” The idea that larger countries can bully weaker ones, and that smaller nations must choose their loyalties, is not one that jibes with a peaceful, ideal world.
But we are not living in a peaceful, ideal world, and such spheres should be respected in the absence of higher authorities capable of administering justice in a so-called “rules based order.”
If you found yourself living in a place where governments, the courts, and police abrogated their responsibilities to the citizenry, you’d notice that mafias had formed, and you’d find yourself paying into protection rackets. If your neighbor was a mafia boss who owned a large chain of grocery stores, you’d know, without being told, exactly where to buy your food. It would simply be in your best interest.
That’s the world we live in. One big mafia state. It’s a world in which the president of the United States says:
“[Canada doesn’t] pay very much for military. And the reason they don’t pay much is they assume that we’re going to protect them. That’s not an assumption they can make because — why are we protecting another country?” … “I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen. Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”
The neighborhood mafia boss laid bare the foundation of the international protection racket — a partial surrender of sovereignty is required when relying on a neighbor for protection and prosperity. How independent is Canada, actually, when the boss can come knocking and say, “Nice country you got there. Would be terrible if somebody tariffed it to death,” and Canada’s prime minister responded by immediately caving to his demands and aligning the country’s policies to that of the bully.
Notice that Canada didn’t invite China to set up military bases on the border to protect it against the American threat, or (less humorously) lift its moratorium on seabed mining for Chinese companies to extract precious minerals close to US waterways. There are a number of deals Canada could make with the United States’ strategic competitor in retaliation.
Instead, Prime Minister Carney gave what was requested by the racket by handing over expanded resource extraction rights, increasing military spending, and revising Canada’s taxation and immigration laws to align with US interests — an expedited surrendering of sovereignty that has been occurring in various forms since the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement of the 1980s.
Let’s say Carney did what was best for Canada in that moment, that he had no choice in the global mafia order he finds himself paying tribute to. We should nonetheless remind Canadians that, last April, they thought they were voting for the guy who would bolster defenses against the American threat. In fact, they were voting for the leader who would perform the required acquiescence in the least humiliating manner. After all, who gives a better cosmetic shine to the process than someone of Trump’s social class, a multi-millionaire who was vice-chairman of a global asset management firm that does business with the Trump family. The two leaders emerged from the same protection racket — banking and real estate — and know how to talk each other’s language.
Cook Islands: Asserting Sovereignty at a Cost
Contrast Canada’s obedience with the freewheeling style of the Cook Islands. This Pacific archipelago, by some standards, is a sovereign nation. By other standards, it is not: The islands do not have its own armed forces and are served by a strategic alliance with New Zealand, which provides the Cooks and its people with military protection, Kiwi citizenship, and (until recently) an annual bequeathment of US$11 million in development aid. In addition to the yearly payments, it also received US$115 million in various other aid grants over the past three years.
One might think that if the “enemy” of the Cooks’ benefactor came knocking with substantial financial top-ups, the government might consider the local and regional implications before negotiating any deals.
The assumed antagonist in this story is China. Whether China is an actual threat to New Zealand is not the point. If New Zealand, even irrationally, believes that China is a threat, the Cooks are in no position to challenge that perspective without consequence.
Consider again what the Cook Islands receive from New Zealand — military protection, NZ passports, and financial aid to the tune of about $3,800 per person last year. This is an arrangement they put into jeopardy when they signed a series of agreements with Beijing in February 2025 that grants the islands an initial payment of US$4 million for China’s access to seabed mining along with: “investment, tourism, ocean science, aquaculture, agriculture, infrastructure including transport, climate resilience, disaster preparedness, creative industries, technology and innovation, education and scholarships and people to people exchanges.”
The Cook Islands might say they are asserting their sovereignty — “We conduct our international relations independently” — but given that New Zealand has indefinitely paused its $11 million in annual funding and could take further action, all the Cooks are doing is trading who it is selling its sovereignty to. Four million dollars now. Surely greater sums are to follow.
New Zealand, for its part, has not reacted in its best interests either. It could have pledged an additional $4 million to the Cooks in exchange for canceling the deals, or at least not signing any new ones. After all, New Zealand’s relationship with the Cook Islands grants it (and the West in general) a military and economic footprint over a wide swath of the Pacific. It’s money well spent. By cutting off the Cooks’ financial lifeline, New Zealand has ceded a large part of its influence to China, which can now further fill that gap.
One could condemn New Zealand’s response as “colonial bullying” as Mick Hall wrote on his Substack. Hall is a New Zealander and a media veteran, and obviously understands this issue with greater depth than I could. I don’t disagree with Hall — I just react from a different perspective. The Cook Islands contend that they were not obligated under their arrangement to notify New Zealand of the negotiations. But given the security benefits they receive from their partner, they should have known it would be more than a courtesy to keep New Zealand informed. They opened this Pandora’s box, and the result could be anything from a quiet reaffirmation of the Cooks’ obligations to New Zealand to an escalation that results in annexation of the islands. The latter is most unlikely, but “security concerns” have been the justification, legitimately or not, for territorial expansions throughout history — Hawaii in 1895, East Timor in 1975, Golan Heights in 1981, Crimea in 2014, just to name a few.
Taiwan Parallel
Living in Taipei, I see some parallels in Taiwan’s situation.
Firstly, look at a map to see where the Cook Islands are located, and where Taiwan sits. The cooks are located 3,000 kilometers to New Zealand’s northeast, and about 10,000 kilometers from China. Taiwan sits just off China’s coast, with the United States 10,000 kilometers in the other direction.
In the mafia analogy of international relations, Taiwan has cut a deal with a boss in a distant neighborhood for protection against the one across the street. This arrangement, despite its benefits to the Taiwanese, has been volatile and is likely unsustainable.
If the Cook Islands continue to shift their political orientation toward their neighbor’s strategic competitor, they would risk becoming like Taiwan — a target in an international conflict, gambling that they won’t suffer any serious consequences.
Taiwan has spent 75 years backing itself into a corner, and if negotiations with China are deemed impossible, other players will decide its fate. The Cook Islands should learn from this. The short-term or even decades-long benefits of playing its two suitors off one another will come at a cost. It would be easier for the Cooks to focus on rebuilding trust with New Zealand now, which might mean sacrificing its ability to negotiate economic alliances independently.
Having to cave to a “bully” might not seem fair, but fair judgements cannot be handed down by any overarching global arbitrator. The “mafia world order” deals the cards, and their subordinates can play their hands cautiously, as Canada does, or raise the stakes and accept the outcomes.
