The ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States is celebrating its 70th anniversary amid new challenges from China's growing economic and diplomatic influence in the Pacific region. The treaty emerged from the three countries' long shared history and alliance during World War II. It committed them to defend one another and ensure peace in the Pacific. While tensions have strained the alliance at times, shared concerns about China's actions have brought renewed focus on cooperation between the three countries militarily and in multilateral partnerships like the Quad. As economic and political tensions with China escalate for Australia and New Zealand, the ANZUS Treaty remains a defining part of their national security strategies.

1. The ANZUS Treaty at 70
As their alliance turns 70, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. now face different challenges
from China.
By Patricia A. O’Brien
August 25, 2021
Seventy years after Australia, New Zealand, and the United States signed a treaty committing
them to defend one another and work together to ensure a peaceful Pacific, the alliance has
assumed new and crucial relevance as all three countries face economic, political and diplomatic
challenges from China.
The ANZUS Treaty, named with the initials of the three countries, emerged in 1951 from the
nations’ shared history and became an important element of post-World War II international
relations. Now, as the Pacific region is ominously poised on the brink of war, the alliance is
again a key part of international relations and power struggles.
DeepShared Pasts
Beyond the ancient connections between Indigenous Hawaiians and New Zealand’s Maori
people, the three nations’ stories have been intertwined for centuries.
Britain began colonizing Australia in 1788 because of the loss of the American colonies. Some
advocates wanted to relocate American loyalists, as well as indentured servants once destined for
North America, to the South Pacific instead. Exiled British loyalists scattered around the empire,
with only some reaching the South Pacific. But for 160,000 convicts, Australia’s colonies
became their place of banishment over the next 80 years.
At the end of the 18th century, New England whalers and sealers began arriving in New Zealand
and Australia. Complex ongoing connections spanned the Pacific over the subsequent years from
trade, idea flows, and movements of people, fueled especially by Pacific gold rushes. All three
societies developed similar nation-founding myths out of their parallel experiences of conquering
Indigenous peoples to form their respective “White nations.”
Complex interconnections reached new heights during World War II. In 1940, spurred by
impending war, the United States recognized Australia as an independent nation, distinct from
the United Kingdom. Two years later, the U.S. did the same for New Zealand, while the three
nations’ military forces were joined in fighting a war against imperial Japan.
The Cold War Birth of ANZUS
All three nations played critical roles in bringing about Japan’s 1945 surrender, and all were
transformed by that experience. More than a million U.S. troops were stationed in Australia and
New Zealand to defend those countries against feared Japanese invasions. The sheer numbers of

2. U.S. soldiers, among the countries’ combined 8.6 million residents, reshaped the provincial
societies, Americanizing their music and romantic rituals. Australia and New Zealand were also
transformed by 17,000 women leaving their homelands to become American wives and mothers.
Then from 1949, when Communists took over China, the Pacific region was plunged into the
Cold War. The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 further escalated anxieties about
communism’s spread. Yet Australia and New Zealand still felt threatened by a rearmed,
“aggressive” Japan.
There was a complication, though: The U.S. wanted to rapidly rebuild Japan to help defend
democracy and peace in the North Pacific. This objective was to be enshrined in a proposed
mutual security alliance with the former bitter enemy.
The U.S. had been ambivalent about formalizing security arrangements with only Australia and
New Zealand. As the U.S. advanced its Japan treaty in 1951, however, Australia and New
Zealand met this development with what the U.S. State Department called “great suspicion and
disapproval.” So the three nations devised a compromise to placate Australia and New Zealand’s
concerns.
That compromise was a trilateral agreement, the ANZUS Treaty. It guaranteed each nation’s
security and set up ongoing regional cooperation to protect peace in the Pacific. The ANZUS
Treaty was signed in San Francisco on September 1, 1951, seven days before the signing of the
Japan-U.S. treaty.
ANZUS Strained and Repaired
In the U.S., ANZUS is little known. But in Australia and New Zealand, the treaty has been a
defining part of national security for 70 years. Its popularity has shifted based on public opinion
about the U.S. president at the time, or his wars.
In the 1980s, stark differences over nuclear power led the pro-nuclear U.S. to suspend its alliance
commitment to the anti-nuclear New Zealand. Tensions eased during the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and bilateral ties, including security cooperation improved markedly. New Zealand
and the United States signed the Wellington Declaration in 2010, followed by the 2012
Washington Declaration, which “strengthened the defense relationship by providing a framework
and strategic guidance for security cooperation and defense dialogues.” These steps, however,
fell short of a full restoration of the alliance.
In more recent years, emphasis has shifted to the many unifying facets of the nations rather than
points of difference. In 2021, as when ANZUS was born in 1951, the activities of China are
reshaping the alliance. This has been evident in a renewed stress on long-standing friendships,
cultural common ground and regional partnerships on defense matters.
New Tensions With China

3. Both Australia and New Zealand had been economic beneficiaries of the rise of China, both
nations’ largest trading partner, while pragmatically maintaining close ties with the U.S. as well.
The balance shifted in 2020, when Australia led calls for investigations into Chinese
accountability for the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s response was quick: It suspended economic
dialogues, targeted trade reprisals on some Australian exports, and, most alarming, state media
threatened missile strikes.
Amid these escalating tensions, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison made an ominous
speech evoking a region “eerily haunted by similar times many years ago in the 1930s” that led
to the Pacific war.
Even so, the value of Australia’s exports to China actually increased 33 percent over the past
year, in part thanks to rising prices of Australian iron ore.
Though Australia is again closely aligned with the U.S., there is one major caveat. Australia’s
ongoing fossil-fuel-friendly policies differ from the Biden’s administration’s sweeping climate
agenda. Biden has pledged not to “pull any punches,” even with Australia, to solve a global
problem.
New Zealand is still trying to balance Chinese and U.S. interests. Rapidly rising regional
tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and China’s hand in eroding human rights and
democracy, not to mention its treatment of Australia, are testing the nation’s leaders.
Shifting Focus to the Pacific Region
Because of China, the U.S. is increasing its attention to the Pacific at levels not seen since World
War II. Two recent bipartisan congressional bills address Chinese influence in multiple arenas,
including scientific research security and China’s economic, political, and military efforts.
In related efforts, the U.S. military has announced plans to build new bases in three strategically
located Pacific island countries. The countries – the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic
of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau – were U.N. trusts administered by the U.S.
but are now independent nations freely associated with the U.S.
ANZUS is fundamental in this U.S. strategy. Both Australia and New Zealand are substantially
increasing defense spending in ways that further bind the three nations’ militaries together. Also
key is the intelligence-sharing agreement dating back to World War II, “Five Eyes,” which also
includes Canada and the U.K.
In addition, the U.S. and Australia are part of the “Quad,” a four-nation group, with Japan and
India, building on Cold War security agreements to meet China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific region.
While military tensions in the mid-2021 Pacific are high around Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the
South China Sea, the U.S. has just concluded Operation Pacific Iron in Guam and the Northern
Marianas, a huge demonstration of air, land, and sea power. Also, biennial joint exercises called

4. Talisman Saber recently concluded in Australia, involving include 17,000 troops from U.S. and
allied nations. These exercises were also aimed at demonstrating power and battle readiness.
China watched these activities closely.
As ANZUS turns 70, the deep, entwined pasts of New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. will
continue to fundamentally shape the Pacific’s uncertain future.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the
original article here.