New Zealand’s Five Eyes stance: Not surprising, not unjust, and not unwise
New Zealand’s Five Eyes stance: not surprising, not unjust, and not unwise
WRITTEN BY LUCAS KNOTTER
6 May 2021
Last month, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta raised eyebrows in some foreign policy circles with her comments at the New Zealand China Council. In many respects, Mahuta’s speech itself served up very little news. She acknowledged and underlined China’s position as New Zealand’s largest trading partner, but also stated that “it is prudent not to put all eggs into a single basket”. She spoke of the mutual respect between the ‘Dragon’ and the ‘Taniwha’ (a legendary dragon-like creature in Māori folklore), but also (subtly) rebuked China’s policy towards the South Pacific and towards elements of the ‘rules-based’ international order. Most significantly, Mahuta confirmed that New Zealand “will not ignore the severity and impact of any particular country’s actions if they conflict with our longstanding and formal commitment to universal human rights”, explicitly referring to China’s treatment of Uyghur communities and of Hong Kong’s democracy.
Yet, it was comments made after her speech, in response to journalists’ questions, that especially seemed to provoke concern and bemusement among New Zealand’s traditional (western) allies. Specifically, Mahuta noted that “New Zealand has been very clear… not to invoke the Five Eyes as the first point of contact on messaging… on a range of issues that really exist outside of the remit of the Five Eyes”. According to Mahuta, “the Five Eyes relationship has a specific purpose”, but New Zealand would be “uncomfortable” with expanding its scope. Instead, Mahuta said, “we would much rather prefer other partners” and “look for multilateral opportunities to express our interests”.
Independent foreign policy?
If (some) international responses are to go by, Mahuta and Jacinda Ardern’s government committed a cardinal sin. Supposedly, Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand had “pushed aside Five Eyes to pursue closer ties with China”, and as a result, New Zealand and Australia “used to be best mates but not now”. Allegedly, the Five Eyes had now become four, New Zealand now was the “West’s Woke Weak Link”, the All Blacks will from now prelude their rugby games by “doing the kowtow instead of the Haka”, and New Zealand — with its “female and Māori government” — had now “bended to PRC divide-and-rule” while others ‘defend liberty’. However, aside from the latent regressiveness, misogyny, and racism implied in (some of) such remarks, they altogether signal a misapprehension of New Zealand’s foreign policy in general, and Mahuta’s words in particular. This misapprehension, mostly, seems to stem from an inability to come to terms with New Zealand’s — or anyone’s — attempts at a measured and autonomous diplomatic approach.
New Zealand and the Five Eyes should continue to give strong signals in opposition to China’s international and domestic conduct, but it is hard to countenance a positive outcome from antagonistic machismo rhetoric.
To be sure, the main takeaway from Mahuta’s remarks should be that the Ardern government is merely seeking to uphold its position as a (nominally) ‘independent’ international actor. In light of its trade relations with China, dry calculations about economic interests may have informed New Zealand’s caution against bandwagoning with the ‘other Four Eyes’ too enthusiastically, but this is by no means a ‘sudden’ move. New Zealand has prided itself in its self-labelled ‘independent foreign policy' for decades now, most prominently manifested in its 1980s anti-nuclear stance ‘against’ the United States. While the true ‘independence’ of New Zealand’s foreign relations is mostly a myth, the fact remains that Mahuta’s comments seemed very much in step with its conventional foreign policy disposition. Although the foreign minister’s words apparently surprised Australian senior government officials, New Zealand’s wariness about deepening the Five Eyes’ integration is hardly classified information.
In that light, despite the argie-bargie immediately following Mahuta’s statements, New Zealand’s ‘independent’ stance should not be seen as a removal from ‘the West’ or as an abandonment of ‘western-based’ cooperative arrangements. New Zealand is certainly not ‘backing away’ from the Five Eyes agreement — case in point, its 1980s anti-nuclear move did not in fact entail a true departure from US-led alliances, including the Five Eyes itself. Both Mahuta herself and Prime Minister Ardern confirmed their government’s commitment to the Five Eyes. Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne, during her visit across the Tasman in the days after Mahuta’s comments, seemed hardly perturbed about her counterpart’s language. In a joint statement, both foreign ministers expressed that “New Zealand and Australia stand together in facing a challenging global environment”, and reaffirmed their intent “to work together to preserve the liberal international order that has underpinned stability and prosperity in the [Asia-Pacific] region, and to foster a sustainable regional balance where all countries — large and small — can freely pursue their legitimate interests”.
Moving closer or further away?
Conversely, New Zealand is in no way genuinely ‘moving towards’ or ‘building an alliance’ with China. Chinese state media itself may have assumed a somewhat boisterous tone over Mahuta’s comments, but seemed similarly humbled by Mahuta’s critical remarks. A ‘propaganda’ briefing about Xinjiang Province, rolled out by the Chinese Embassy in Wellington, was mostly met with ridicule. In a balanced speech at the New Zealand China Business Summit, Ardern forewarned that China-New Zealand differences were “becoming harder to reconcile”. In short, New Zealand is not meekly acquiescing to Chinese interests or demands but is instead (rightfully) trying to find a middle ground in facile US-China rivalry games and tropes. Ardern’s China Business Summit speech, for instance, was seen as “strategic and smart”, satisfying both her government’s China critics and Beijing itself.
What seems to be the case, then, is that New Zealand has not so much chosen trade with China over solidarity with its allies, but that (some) other Five Eyes nations have (perhaps sometimes for good reason) moved further away from Beijing. Australia in particular seems increasingly willing to aggravate its Chinese relations in service of what it believes to be its national interest. For some, these Australian moves amount to “missteps”, not because China should be placated, but because Australia has “mishandled its relationship with the rising power” due to the brash manner in which it has drawn lines in the sand. The non-compliance of New Zealand with this bluster is not only fairly reasonable, but the outrage also says more about Australia’s internal dynamics than New Zealand’s.
Furthermore, it actually remains rather vague as to what New Zealand has tangibly gained from its Five Eyes participation, or whether it is merely a corollary of being part of the ‘western English speaking’ club. It, therefore, seems perfectly logical that the exact nature of the Five Eyes alliance remains open to interpretation. Fundamentally, indeed, the Five Eyes agreement is one to do with intelligence sharing — whether it should thereby also become a broader diplomatic alliance, for instance with ‘NATO-Article-5-type’ mechanisms, is a rather different question. In many ways, the development or translation of an intelligence agreement into a more coordinated foreign policy scheme may be unsurprising — if you trust countries enough to share your most sensitive secrets with them, you will often also cooperate with these countries on non-intelligence issues. But New Zealand is not the only country that has considered alternative foreign policy partners and arrangements; in that respect, it is not really at odds with Australia’s modus operandi, for instance.
Dialogue, not machismo
Naturally, New Zealand’s approach to balancing China and the Five Eyes is not beyond critique. Its language referring to the Chinese Uyghur treatment, refraining from recognising it as ‘genocide’ and instead discussing ‘rights abuses’ in more general terms, seems very lacklustre. In that regard, it is curious that Mahuta singled out the “human rights space” as an issue where New Zealand would possibly not invoke the Five Eyes framework, implicitly hinting that the other ‘Eyes’ are not innocent when it comes to Human Rights breaches. While this may generally be accurate, such arguments carry a hint of ‘whataboutism’ that downplays the Uyghur genocide. Also, New Zealand’s argument that it prefers broader coalitions than Five Eyes in its foreign affairs are somewhat undermined by its unwillingness to subscribe to other broader coalitions. For instance, it did not sign a 14-country statement decrying the WHO’s lack of access to investigate COVID origins in China.
But such critiques require some caveats as well. For instance, in light of recent US political dynamics, Five Eyes nations might very justifiably be careful of (future) US hegemony in a great power ‘race to the bottom’ with China. New Zealand may have also found that signing the China-critical COVID statement could be read as conspiracy theorising dog-whistles about China’s pandemic culpability. Obviously, New Zealand’s aim to sustain links with China, when Chinese ties with Australia and the US are deteriorating, might be a challenging one. Yet, regardless, such an aim requires thorough and realistic strategic thinking — not buying into hawkish narratives about New Zealand’s ‘backstabbing government’ that is ‘sucking up to the Chinese dictatorship’. Moreover, we may consider that last week’s brouhaha about Mahuta’s comments not merely stemmed from an innocent ‘missing the point’, but from a deliberate interpretation in service of rivalrous narrative building. Again, therefore, we should not take too much stock in the warmongering of some members of the Australian government, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or neo-con hacks like Paul Wolfowitz.
New Zealand and the Five Eyes should continue to give strong signals in opposition to China’s international and domestic conduct, but it is hard to countenance a positive outcome from antagonistic machismo rhetoric. China deserves condemnation in many regards, but “one should be wary of distorting the China threat” or unnecessary ‘Cold War’ narratives and approaches. Rather, “constructive dialogue with China represents the only viable route” to hold China to account on normative issues important to the international community. As Robert Kelly posed, “keep trying to engage. More effort. More diplomacy. Keep talking. Keep trying to tie China into rules, regimes, codes of conduct, and IOs. Keep looking for shared interests we can build on… This may not work… but we shouldn’t just give up and drift into a (Cold) war because it’s intellectually easier to accept some deterministic Thucydides trap”.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Lucas Knotter is a Lecturer with the Department of International Relations and International Organisation (IRIO) at the University of Groningen. Image credit: Flickr/Nevada Halbert.