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China-New Zealand relations
ChinaDiplomacy

New Zealand ‘uncomfortable’ with growing scope of Five Eyes as members speak out on China

  • Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta says Wellington prefers ‘multilateral opportunities to express our interests’ rather than invoke intelligence network
  • She tells NZ China Council that Wellington will continue to speak out to Beijing on human rights issues informed by national values and interests

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New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta says her nation does not wish “to invoke the Five Eyes as the first point of contact of messaging out on a range of issues that really exist out of the remit of the Five Eyes”. Photo: EPA-EFE
Sarah Zheng
New Zealand’s foreign minister said the country was “uncomfortable” with expanding the scope of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, following months of joint statements from the Western partnership about human rights concerns in China.
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Nanaia Mahuta told reporters on Monday that New Zealand had expressed to the rest of the Five Eyes – the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia – that it did not favour the coalition widening beyond intelligence matters.

“We are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the Five Eyes,” she said. “We would much rather prefer to look for multilateral opportunities to express our interests.

“New Zealand has been very clear, certainly in this term and since we’ve held the portfolio, not to invoke the Five Eyes as the first point of contact of messaging out on a range of issues that really exist out of the remit of the Five Eyes,” said Mahuta, who took office as foreign minister in November.

The Five Eyes – the world’s oldest intelligence network dating back to the end of World War II – has expanded coordination in recent months beyond intelligence issues, including to raise security issues and human rights concerns over China. Last year, the five nations joined forces to speak out against Beijing’s political crackdown in Hong Kong and to suspend their extradition treaties with the city as a result.

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But New Zealand had long been seen as the softer link in the Five Eyes when it comes to China. While Wellington welcomed Western sanctions on Beijing’s human rights on Xinjiang, it did not issue sanctions of its own. New Zealand was also the only member to opt out of a joint statement last May before the national security law was enacted in Hong Kong and again in January to condemn mass arrests of opposition figures and activists in Hong Kong, and instead it issued its own statements.

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