By Mike Cherney
New Zealand is known for majestic landscapes, epic filmmaking and once-in-a-lifetime vacations. Now, the country is embarking on a more off-brand project: bolstering its tiny military, as China sends forces deeper into the Pacific.
New Zealand, home to 5.3 million people, plans to spend some $7 billion on its military in the next few years, on things like enhanced strike capabilities, new helicopters, antitank missiles, drones for air and sea surveillance, and much-needed upgrades to aging bases. It is also on a recruitment drive, aiming to reverse attrition after personnel left for higher-paying jobs elsewhere.
The urgency of a well-equipped force was on display last year, when a Chinese naval task force sailed around Australia and conducted live-fire drills between Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand scrambled P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft and naval assets to monitor the maneuvers, which demonstrated China's increasing ability to deploy forces farther afield.
The Chinese naval exercises reminded New Zealanders that the country can't rely on its remote location to keep it out of trouble, Judith Collins, New Zealand's defense minister, said in an interview. "People realized that we can't just stay down at the bottom of the world, and hope nobody knows where we are," she said.
"What we're seeing now is a world that's actually quite contested," she said, adding the military plans were in the works well before the Chinese maneuvers. "As a small nation, we still have to do our bit."
New Zealand's plans show how China's rapid military buildup and Russia's invasion of Ukraine are shifting the calculus for many nations, where classic great-power competition was viewed until recently as a relic of history.
Though New Zealand's military is small, the plans do stand to benefit the U.S., which is working more closely with allies to deter Beijing from taking over Taiwan, the self-governing island China claims. Because U.S. forces focus on hot spots such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, a stronger New Zealand presence in the South Pacific will help monitor and push back against Chinese activities in that area, where New Zealand is responsible for a large exclusive economic zone and search-and-rescue area, analysts said.
It also sends a message to Beijing, which has been trying to grow its influence in strategic Pacific island nations, that the region isn't totally up for grabs.
"There frankly aren't enough American resources to go around for us to be having a day-to-day presence in the South Pacific," said Wilson Beaver, a senior policy adviser at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. From the U.S. perspective, he said, it's a good thing to have friendly ships from New Zealand and U.S. treaty ally Australia patrolling the area.
If there's a conflict over Taiwan, New Zealand's most likely role would be to help protect key shipping lanes that are important to both New Zealand and Australia, Beaver said. China might target Australia because it could serve as a staging ground for U.S. forces, has pushed back against Chinese moves in the Pacific and is close to key waterways.
New Zealand has a formal military alliance with Australia, but had a falling-out with the U.S. when New Zealand took a stance against nuclear weapons in its territory in the 1980s. The U.S. and New Zealand have boosted cooperation in recent years, and New Zealand is a longstanding member of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, which also includes the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia.
"New Zealand's greater focus on China and its associated boost in defense spending are welcome shifts," said Ely Ratner, a former assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs in the Biden administration who is now a principal at the Marathon Initiative think tank. "While this may not lead to major contributions to a regional conflict, Wellington still has huge contributions to make in curbing China's malign influence in the Pacific islands."
New Zealand isn't alone in seeking to bolster its forces. Australia, for example, aims to buy nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S. and is boosting missile production. Singapore, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines are also making investments.
The challenges facing New Zealand's forces have crystallized recently. As of last year, the military had roughly 15,140 people -- including more than 8,000 active-duty personnel, along with reserve forces and civilians -- about 330 fewer than four years earlier. In 2024, a survey ship operated by the navy, the HMNZS Manawanui, ran aground and then sank near Samoa -- an incident that was attributed to a series of human errors.
Three of New Zealand's eight navy ships -- two offshore patrol vessels and one inshore patrol vessel -- were mothballed. Many platforms are aging rapidly, including most of its navy, where many ships will reach the end of their design life by the mid-2030s.
"For two decades or so, you had governments that essentially felt that New Zealand was living in a benign strategic environment...and could afford to really cut defense spending to the bone," said David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University in Wellington.
The plans have still raised eyebrows in a country struggling economically, where dairy remains the largest export. China is New Zealand's largest trading partner, meaning that Wellington must be careful not to totally alienate Beijing.
"What we're being told here in New Zealand is that we're in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis," said Teanau Tuiono, a member of Parliament from the left-wing Greens. "But all of a sudden there's 12 billion dollars to do what, in my mind, Trump wants us to do," he said, using the New Zealand dollar figure for the planned investment.
The main opposition, the center-left Labour Party, supports ensuring that military personnel have the resources to do their jobs effectively, but "does not support drifting toward an overtly aggressive war-fighting posture," said Peeni Henare, who until recently was a Labour lawmaker and defense spokesperson.
The Trump administration has been vocal about getting other countries to spend more on defense. The shopping spree will increase New Zealand's military spending from just above 1% of GDP to more than 2% over about eight years. New Zealand also plans to add 2,500 personnel to the military in the coming years.
New Zealand officials from the right-leaning government say they're open to raising military spending even more down the line. They note that the military investment plan was in the works before Trump began his second term.
New Zealand has already announced some big-ticket items. In August, it said it would buy five MH-60R Seahawk helicopters for use on its ships -- a helicopter that is also used by the U.S. and Australia. A new space squadron has been activated in the air force. New Zealand also said it would buy extra-long-range Airbus A321s, which will be able to fly a round trip to Antarctica without landing -- a key capability if icy conditions make landing there impossible. New Zealand has a research station there.
Meanwhile, one of the mothballed ships, the offshore patrol vessel HMNZS Otago, is preparing to return. New Zealand is also upgrading its two frigates to keep them operational.
New Zealanders are "very aware that the world is changing," said Collins, the defense minister. "The world is not a, let's say, calm place at the moment."
Write to Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2026 23:00 ET (03:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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