Ryan Bridge says New Zealand needs its number-8 wire, positive, can-do, problem solver attitude now more than ever as he warns the country could be pulled into a far bigger global shock than most people are expecting.

He said the world is being strained by conflict in the Middle East, choked-up oil markets and rising concern about Taiwan, adding that some in the intelligence community reckon conflict over the island could happen as early as next year. Bridge said that if that happens, the fallout would not be limited to military headlines. It could hit trade, shipping and the global economy hard.

Bridge said New Zealand should not panic, but it should be ready. “This is not to say we should freak out, but that we should be prepared and stay positive,” he said, while arguing that the country’s best response is to diversify, back itself and keep going.

The stakes, he said, are unusually high because New Zealand is an export nation and China is its number one trading partner, accounting for 20-25% of exports. Bridge said he lived in Beijing and that Taiwan and Hong Kong were constant topics of conversation there. He said both places are deeply important to Chinese thinking, and that Taiwan matters strategically because China’s eastern seaboard, including Beijing, Shanghai and major manufacturing and heavy-industry port cities, sits within spitting distance of it.

That is why Bridge cast Taiwan not as a distant geopolitical issue but as a direct economic risk for New Zealand. He said a quarantine or blockade would be very bad for the country, while Western sanctions would follow if China does what everyone expects it will do. In his telling, the danger is not just disruption to shipping lanes or markets, but a wider shock that could cut across an economy built on selling abroad.

Bridge also used other examples of instability to make the point that the world is already on edge. He said Air New Zealand is in the doldrums, Trump is at war in the Middle East and oil is choked up. But he said the bigger long-term threat may not be oil at all. It may be semiconductors. In his words, the world could be held to ransom over semi-conductors, not oil.

He said the consequences could be enormous, with global GDP potentially dropping 5% if the worst-case scenario plays out. For New Zealand, he argued, the challenge is to accept that a cough in Taiwan means a cold in Southland. In other words, a shock far from home could land quickly in a country that depends on trade, transport and open markets.

Bridge said there will always be some immediate problem to absorb attention. Greg Foran had Covid at Air New Zealand, he said, and Nikhil Ravishankar has a jet fuel crisis. The next chief, he added, will have something else. But his point was broader than any one company or crisis: New Zealand cannot control the world’s instability, only how well it prepares for it.

His conclusion was blunt. New Zealand must keep its confidence, widen its markets and assume the next shock will come from somewhere unexpected. “The best we can do is diversify, back ourselves, and stay positive,” he said.