In an attempt to illustrate why a confrontation between China and New Zealand is imaginable, some different scenarios will be reviewed.
Taiwan?
There is a risk that hostilities could break out between the two prime protagonists who are concerned with Taiwan, namely China and the United States.
Rather than launching an outright invasion, many experts believe that a more likely outcome is for China to impose a blockade on Taiwan, effectively cutting it off from the outside world. A blockade would prolong the Taiwan conflict more than a Chinese invasion would. The outcome would be largely similar, as a blockade would rapidly result in US involvement and an escalating military conflict. The difference between the two outcomes does not need to be further commented on
New Zealand is not a major trading partner of Taiwan. Protecting its trade with Taiwan as a trading partner would not be sufficiently serious on its own to justify New Zealand taking up arms over Taiwan.
Either way, if there is a blockade or invasion, it would result in a closure of the South China Sea in the vicinity of Taiwan with a resulting constriction of trade routes to China, South Korea/the Republic of Korea (RoK), and Japan, which could affect New Zealand. It would plainly be in New Zealand’s interests if China could be deterred from taking the first step, which could lead to such a state of affairs. But whether or not China would be deterred would not be affected by New Zealand’s added presence in a coalition of Western forces ranged against China; it would not add significantly to the deterrent effect already available. New Zealand would benefit from normalcy in the South China Sea, but joining a coalition would not help, even if invited and able to join, which it isn’t.
Another important consideration is that a major reason shaping America’s explicit justification for supporting Taiwan is the need to uphold the international rules-based order including the proscription of states invading other countries as they choose[1]. That is not to say that the US position is entirely principle-based: a further, non-articulated, driver of America’s involvement is that other regional nations which are hedging their position will be looking with interest to see whether America prevails over Taiwan.
But New Zealand has itself repeatedly referred to the rules-based order when articulating what it stands for. Without expressly stating support for Taiwan, New Zealand has in recent times, including in conjunction with Australia, made statements recording its opposition to unilateral action over Taiwan and to the need for peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues without the threat or use of force or coercion[2]. A need for consistency between such stated principles and New Zealand’s actions would suggest New Zealand should support the US in Taiwan on this ground.
Additionally, should New Zealand wish to align itself defensively with the United States as an ally (an issue discussed elsewhere in these articles), it would be tactically unwise for it to do nothing to support the US until its defence interests were directly affected. The current US administration would likely detect any perceived failure on New Zealand’s part. However, this does not imply that the US would anticipate New Zealand’s direct military involvement in the Taiwan conflict. It is unlikely that it even expects Australia to be so involved. Its role would be in areas such as basing US forces if necessary and supporting the US with intelligence via its Pine Gap and North-west Cape intelligence sites.
In the end, though, the question of whether New Zealand should take up arms in solidarity with the United States and other Western countries is academic for many practical reasons. First, New Zealand is not bound to participate in those hostilities and probably shouldn’t because its immediate strategic interests are not involved. New Zealand will not, in the near or medium term, be in a position to fight in what would be a primarily maritime-centred conflict because it does not have any suitable ships that would be fit for a contemporary sea battle. Even if it did, it could not deploy them to the scene of a battle some 7000 km from New Zealand shores.
[1] Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter
[2] Such a statement was made in August 2024
An invasion of New Zealand’s home territory?
Those New Zealanders who give any thought to their national security would probably agree that the apex risk to national security is China invading New Zealand. What are the probabilities of that occurring?
A fundamental question is a military one. It is whether launching an invasion of New Zealand from China would be a practical possibility.
This would be a type of project China has never undertaken previously, and that would affect its level of confidence about succeeding. Transporting a large invasion force down from China over 8,000 km would require a very big fleet of ships and aircraft, including an aircraft carrier and other battle group elements, including missile-launching ships, along with sustained supply lines for fuel, food, ammunition, and equipment.
The Chinese would also consider the primary question of whether, even if invasion were possible, it would be so costly in terms of resources as to make it not worthwhile. A cost assessment would factor in the type and intensity of any New Zealand defence.
Further, even though there is no alliance that compels America or Australia to intervene against a Chinese force invading New Zealand, such a force would be at risk because of its very long supply lines, leaving it vulnerable to attack.
Finally, China as a trading nation is highly dependent upon and should open trade routes and disrupting global trade by a grace of unjustified invasion of New Zealand would risk severe responses in the form of sanctions by other nations which would have an adverse effect on China’s own prosperity.
But perhaps the most important question is, why China would want to invade New Zealand? Concerns about a possible invasion probably rest on the unspoken assumption that China needs more space and that is such a pressing need that it would willingly bear the cost involved. But is that necessarily correct?
In that regard, a relevant factor is that the Chinese population trends are downward, with United Nations projections suggesting that China’s population could fall from its current 1.4 billion to 1.3 billion by 2050. Nor do China’s modernisation statements refer to the need for more land (although it might have done so privately in view of the alarm that openly discussing such a question could cause across the region). As well, if it wanted additional space, New Zealand’s landmass is small, and even more so if there is taken into account the fact that a high proportion of New Zealand’s land space is uninhabitable for urban living. It would not fit in a significant number of people—at least in Chinese terms. A further consideration, too, is that if the country was swamped by additional population, some of the very factors that might make it attractive—agricultural and food production—would be prejudiced and negatively affected.
On the other hand, if China occupies New Zealand’s home territory, it might find it easier to control New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which spans over 4 million square kilometres and is among the 4th or 5th largest globally, providing potential advantages in resources. The issue of whether China is motivated to take New Zealand’s natural resources is dealt with below. It appears that, at present, China does not consider New Zealand’s natural resources essential; therefore, any perceived need for those resources is unlikely to motivate an invasion.
A further consideration is that if it was just a matter of obtaining New Zealand’s food production, and assuming China did not just want to pay for it, there are other ways that China could extract favourable arrangements for itself by taking steps short of an invasion.
Then there is the consideration that if the invasion succeeded, it would be questionable whether Chinese nationals would be interested in transplanting themselves to what they would probably view as the bottom of the earth.
A further factor that should not be overlooked is that after actual invasion has been accomplished, the next requirement would be to secure the territory acquired. There is no doubt there would be considerable resistance from the local population that would represent a major obstacle to imposing a new order on the people of Aotearoa New Zealand.
In summary, the presently foreseeable risk of a land invasion against New Zealand seems low. On the other hand, so extreme would be the consequences to New Zealand if it did occur that New Zealanders might desire, if possible, to rule out any practical risk of it occurring by arming against it.
The importance of this question—invasion or not—to military preparation cannot be overstated because an invasion would have different requirements from, say, combating illegal fishing in New Zealand’s EEZ or protecting its long shipping routes across the Pacific. Resolving this question brings into consideration how New Zealand would resist invasion.
New Zealand’s defence against invasion would involve what has been called a “porcupine” defence[1]. A defence of this kind involves a small country like New Zealand, not having the same level or sophistication of its opponent’s forces, trying to succeed in a type of asymmetric war it which it maximises its survivability and lethality through dispersed and mobile defences. The intent would be to impose such losses on the invader as to persuade it can foresee that the benefits from invading would not outweigh the costs. Taiwan, for example, proposes to defend itself through a porcupine strategy[2].
If New Zealand decided to defend against a possible invasion, it has to be kept clearly in mind that the available resources would greatly constrain its defence; they would be much more meagre in quantity and quality than would be optimum. The detailed strategies and tactics would be the subject of recommendations from military experts but would seem to involve deploying land-to-sea and, possibly, air-to-sea missile fire directed at Chinese vessels in the northern approaches to New Zealand. It would also necessitate unmanned land, sea, and sub-sea devices being deployed en masse against an approaching fleet. Possibly sea mines would be deployed. Onshore, major land mining would also be indicated, and some building of defence structures would be required. There would need to be strong, well-equipped ground and naval forces.
Suffice to say that New Zealand’s two medium-weight frigates lacking optimum submarine and air protection would seem to have little part to play in such a scenario. On their own, the chances of them striking with sufficient force to check a modern Chinese naval group that is supplied with the latest generation of defence equipment would, even with assistance from other elements of New Zealand’s military[3], be close to nil. To evaluate the forces that New Zealand could field, comparison can be made with the type of the range of forces and their power that the US, or even Australia would deploy to engage a sizeable Chinese invasion force. A typical American battle group would involve an aircraft carrier, air defences, current generation fighter-bombers, anti-ship missiles, a nuclear submarine etc.
But whatever New Zealand’s defence experts considered to be New Zealand’s optimum defence plan, it seems highly unlikely that it would be sufficient to repel a powerful Chinese force. That is even before considering one further major obstacle, which is considered next.
In May 2025, a Chinese military magazine outlined a strategy of “urban collapse warfare” for use against Taiwan[4]. The aim, it said, would be to knock out key infrastructure nodes in order to cause cascading failures in electricity, water, transportation, communications, medical services, and food supply. This approach, the article said, is intended to break Taiwan’s will to resist with minimal military cost, reflecting a major concern for Taiwan’s vulnerability to such attacks. The conclusion of the article was that such an attack on Taiwan would overcome the will to resist and create favourable conditions for a ‘win without fighting’,” it said. “It could provide a low-cost, high-efficiency military option for resolving the Taiwan issue.”
It would be feasible for China to use a threatened or actual missile attack as part of similar tactics in the event of an invasion or blockade of New Zealand. It would not have to launch such an attack from mainland China, although it could do so. More likely, there would be a threat conveyed to the New Zealand government that if it did not surrender, New Zealand’s territory would be attacked by missiles launched from naval vessels in the nearby sea area.
A further significant point is that the so-called urban collapse warfare is not restricted to a possible invasion. It could be used by the Chinese in other circumstances in order to force New Zealand into ceasing to resist other illegal Chinese activity, such as, for example, Chinese forces entering New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone, perhaps in the area of the Kermadecs, to support threatened illegal Chinese seabed mining.
But assuming that New Zealand could not rely on the assistance of allies, there does not seem to be any other answer that New Zealand could come up with to a threatened missile attack. New Zealand does not, for example, currently have an air-defence system such as the type which Israel and increasingly Ukraine have adopted in response to aerial attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure[5]. It does not have the industrial military base that Israel has built up, which has enabled it to provide air defence partly using American systems and partly home-grown platforms.
New Zealand would be unlikely to afford the cost of aerial defence such as the US Patriot system which cost approx. $US1.1b per installation per battery. Each battery provides cover (depending on optioning) up to 100 sq. kms. Even if could, because of demand, there would be long delays before such systems could be delivered.
New Zealand’s vulnerability to this type of threat, incidentally, reinforces the need for a security alliance with the US. That would represent the best chance that China would be deterred from resorting to aerial attack in those and similar circumstances because of the threat of the US retaliating against China on a massive scale, were it to subject New Zealand to such a barrage and other possible allies sending forces to intervene adding to deterrence.
A following article will continue the discussion of how a military threat to New Zealand could emerge. The issues to be discussed will include whether any future war, like past ones, would be fought at a distance from New Zealand, or whether it could be on New Zealand’s home territory. At a later point in this series the topic of defence alliances will be considered.
The next article will continue discussiing threats to New Zealand’s security.
[1] An expression apparently originated by Taiwanese Admiral Lee Hsi-ming but since taken up by many others including Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission who used it with regard to the Ukraine. It invokes the image of a porcupine being impossible for its predator to digest
[2] But with the material difference from New Zealand’s position that Taiwan expects the US to come to its defence.
[3] Such as New Zealand’s Poseidon anti-submarine group
[4] South China Morning Post, 26.05.2025
[5] Even the Israeli air defence did not prove 100% successful in intercepting the June 2025 Iranian missile attack with 10% of the ballistic missiles evading Israel’s Arrow defence system: Guardian 20.06.2025
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