New Zealand is supposed to be our intelligence ally, but it is cozying up to China
Tom Rogan
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Following in the ignominious footsteps of his predecessor Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is continuing down the road of appeasing China.
Visiting Beijing, Hipkins beamed as he met with Xi Jinping on Tuesday. The meeting was “warm and constructive,” Hipkins said. His trade minister similarly posted a flurry of tweets expressing his excitement at being in China. There was no talk, no hints even, at tough conversations over China’s bellicose attitude toward Taiwan, its intellectual property theft, or its rampant undermining of the democratic international order.
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Instead, Xi lavished praise on Hipkins. The Chinese leader was surely grateful for Hipkins’s recent repudiation of President Joe Biden’s recent reference to Xi as a dictator. Asked whether he agreed with Biden’s descriptor, Hipkins responded “No,” adding that the “form of government that China has is a matter for Chinese people.” Pressed by a journalist whether the Chinese people had any say in their government, Hipkins offered the only honest response he could — that of rhetorical squirming.
New Zealand excuses its deference to Beijing through its deep trade ties with China. But trade alone cannot justify what we’ve seen from Ardern and now from Hipkins. For one, neither prime minister has shown much effort in diversifying trade ties beyond China. There’s also the issue of how China now blatantly regards New Zealand as its key outpost in the Pacific.
For example, the Australian newspaper reported last week that New Zealand’s foreign minister was lambasted by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang when she visited China in March. Beijing acts this way because it knows that New Zealand will never complain. Indeed, Hipkins is entirely nonplussed by this undiplomatic arrogance toward his minister and nation.
Here’s the main way this matters to the United States: New Zealand is in an anglophone intelligence alliance (“the Five Eyes”) with Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Any regime this obeisant to China must be removed from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
The Five Eyes alliance is the world’s most capable intelligence-sharing collective. These allies share all but the most sensitive intelligence material they have collected. Unfortunately, it is now a running joke in the U.S. intelligence community that New Zealand’s membership in the alliance might as well entail inviting Beijing into the alliance.
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True, New Zealand’s intelligence community, although a minnow compared to its Five Eyes counterparts, generally retains the trust and respect of its colleagues. The problem is that the New Zealand government and civil service are regarded as being simply too pro-Beijing to be trusted with highly sensitive intelligence material. The long-term infiltration and influence peddling of Chinese agents in New Zealand adds another concern.
Alliances are ultimately built on trust. At their pinnacle, they are measured by the willingness of allies to stand together against external threats. New Zealand has no interest in doing so. Instead, it takes the benefits from Five Eyes while dancing to Beijing’s Divide the West waltz. Biden may be willing to tolerate this absurdity, but the next American president should not.