China has used its economic influence in New Zealand to drive a wedge between New Zealand and other members of a crucial, U.S.-led intelligence-sharing network, some Western officials fear.
“There is an enormous amount of tension and disconnect between New Zealand’s political and security interests, on the one hand, and its overreliance on the Chinese market for its agricultural exports on the other,” Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow Gregory Poling said. “We’re starting to see it come more and more to the surface in New Zealand’s political debate.”
New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta startled Western allies around the world this week by declaring that Five Eyes — an intelligence bloc comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom — should not function as a platform for confronting China in diplomatic or political disputes. Mahuta framed this posture as way to keep the intelligence network focused on its primary mission, but officials in capitals around the world took the statement as ominous evidence that Beijing’s economic clout weakens alliances.
“New Zealand is a great example of that: They’ve just left large parts of the Five Eyes community. Who would have ever thought that would have happened?” British lawmaker Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the defense committee in the House of Commons, told the London-based Council on Geostrategy this week.
He attributed that apparent breach to New Zealand’s embrace of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an overseas infrastructure development project that many Western officials regard as a “predatory” scheme to gain political influence and even sovereignty in key locales.
“When you look into the details, you realize that they’ve signed up to the One Belt One Road programs, infrastructure programs, and that would be threatened if they were to stay too close to the West,” Ellwood said. “So countries are now being forced to make decisions to look left or right — and that, we need to wake up to.”
Those comments overstate the significance Mahuta’s announcement this week, according to a conservative analyst based in Washington.
“In some ways, we’re beginning to ask too much of this Five Eyes alliance,” the Heritage Foundation’s Walter Lohman said. “It has a very specific purpose, and the purpose is to share intelligence among five countries that we trust more than any in the world, and it works perfectly for that.”
Mahuta offered a similar defense of her statement this week that New Zealand will refuse to join the other members of the bloc in making public statements “on a range of issues that really exist outside of the remit” of the intelligence network. Her comment was an unmistakable reference to joint condemnations of China’s human rights abuses, which Mahuta has joined once before but will do so no longer.
“We do value the Five Eyes relationship,” she said Thursday. “We receive significant benefits from being a part of that relationship, and they are close allies and friends in terms of common values and principles. But whether or not that framework needs to be invoked every time on every issue, especially in the human rights space, is something that we have expressed further views about.”
That argument begs the question of what counts as an intelligence operation, according to Poling, given China’s aggressive and unconventional influence operations in other countries. And while New Zealand remains a trusted member of Five Eyes, there is less certainty now that Wellington will align with the U.S. and other democratic nations in various disputes with Beijing.
“In some ways, the brouhaha over this is a good reminder about what the prospects really are out there for developing some sort of grand coalition to push back against China, what the challenges are to that,” Lohman said. “Most of the world isn’t there.”
Yet Mahuta also noted that New Zealand’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative could still be reversed.
“New Zealand and China signed a nonbinding memorandum arrangement in 2017,” she told reporters. “We’ve not yet concluded the work program and will still consider our approach based on that approach.”
Mahuta likewise signaled this week that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would broaden the country’s economic relationships — “It is prudent not to put all eggs into a single basket,” she told the New Zealand China Council — in a way that would diminish Beijing’s influence.
Still, those comments were overshadowed by her earlier effort to cabin Five Eyes operations from other issues. The speech Monday took Australian officials by surprise, but Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne struck a collegial note following her meeting with Mahuta this week.
“Our respect for each other … is enduring and continuing and one which we, particularly in Australia, value enormously,” Payne said. “But we also have to acknowledge that China’s outlook and the nature of China’s external engagement, both in our region and globally, has changed in recent years. And an enduring partnership requires us to adapt to those new realities, to talk with each other.”
Mahuta’s statement about Five Eyes resonated negatively in part because Australia has become embroiled in disputes with China. Beijing has blocked major Australian exports to China in order to punish Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for demanding transparency about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Yet, that fight can be taken as a favorable precedent for Five Eyes, given that Australian leaders ultimately refused to allow economic dependence on China to paralyze their political choices.
“It is a little unfair to assume that the same is not true of New Zealand,” Poling said. “The fact that New Zealand is overwhelmingly reliant on the Chinese export market and that makes New Zealand’s diplomats a little more cautious than others, as Australian diplomats were [in years past], doesn’t necessarily mean that if a critical decision comes that New Zealand won’t be there.”
