Last month China did a security deal with the Solomon Islands and over the weekend Samoa signed up too - meaning China's warships could be based not far from New Zealand.

The US has responded by bolstering its military and hastily forming a new alliance with Japan, India and Australia.

But as a trading nation, New Zealand sits awkwardly between the US and China, therefore, if it came down to WW3 New Zealand would have to pick a side.

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"The pressures would be intense, a war in the Taiwan Strait could be the first that the US and China have fought each other since the Korean War," Victoria University Professor Robert Ayson told Patrick Gower on The Project.

"It could possibly lead to, at some point, a nuclear escalation if China and the US weren't exceedingly careful about what they targetted." 

Currently, nine countries, both enemies and allies, hold enough nukes to destroy every single city in the world with plenty of nukes to spare.

"It's pretty clear neither of them want war, what's not so clear is whether they can completely guarantee that they can avoid it as they compete with one another," Prof Ayson said. 

But there is a way out of war?

"It is possible for Asia's peace and for the peace of the Pacific to continue, there's no doubt about that. We could have a better situation than we had in the Cold War, but we could also have a worse situation," Prof Ayson said.

Meaning the best-case scenario could be another Cold War.