Why The Americans Waited Nine Years To Bring Up Taking Our Eye Out Of The Five
Another article, published today, is doing the rounds about the prospect of NZ being booted out of the ‘5 Eyes’ ‘security’ club, due to the alleged perforation of the heart of our politics by the People’s Republic of China.
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.
The problem the Americans have identified was *worse* under National. Yet for nine years the US did NOT seek to proffer this ‘threat’ at us.
The reason for this is quite simple.
They don’t actually care nearly as much as they are pretending about the issue of Chinese ‘infiltration’. They DO care, at least somewhat, if i) your governing party is “red” in its electoral material [regardless of its actual substance in practice], ii) it’s not all that keen on supporting their general penchant for overseas military adventurism.
So therefore, National got a ‘free pass’ despite a Chinese intelligence agent in its Parliamentary Caucus, because it made the ‘right noises’ about wanting to have helped invade Iraq, etc. etc. and not rocking the boat with neoliberalism.
Meanwhile, the Labour/NZF/Greens Government can move to block Huawei from getting the contract for our 5G cellphone network upgrade, start rolling out a policy of attempting to *actively encourage* the US to engage in the Pacific to head off the PRC, and can even preside over the problem of PRC influence/infiltration actually being talked about even at a Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry …
… and because it is ‘convenient’ to do so, because it lines up with other priorities, this smokescreen approach of “The Chinese are Puppeteering the Parliamentary Labour Party” gets rolled out.
Whether because the Americans are generally keen on ‘disciplining’ NZ for not being totally 100% in-line on various geopolitical fronts (and the prospect of trading with Russia may also be in mind here); or whether it is in a bid to surreptitiously ‘influence’ our domestic politics via the fostering of “Red Scare” style perceptions about the current incumbent Government so as to forment its subsequent replacement via more ‘pliable’ (by both Chinese *and* American foreign pressures, apparently) National-led administration.
Interesting read. I’m amused by the blogs implication that all of the world’s geopolitical problems can be blamed on New Zealand’s Victory Disease and overall apathy with anything outside our borders.
The whole of US foreign policy is characterised by “my way or the high way;” it seems to first imagine some sort of ideal outcome (for the US), and then trying to make it a reality regardless of how easy or difficult it might be in reality, and without trying to make other actors parts of the process, other than through compliance. This goes double for adversaries, which are often not communicated with to begin with.
For instance, I’m not saying it’s a certainty, but I think it would have been possible to expand The Pacific U.S. Navy Fleet without having China threatened by it, with the right forms of APEC security cooperation.
Another thing is how the US obviously sees itself as above international law, and the consequent “do as I say, not as I do,” leading to things like China justifying crimes against humanity by analogy with the Obama Drone Policy.
If one wants to be uncharitable, one could say there is hardly no such thing as American diplomacy, only a gaggle of different foreign affairs handled more or less tactlessly.
I think it’s scarcely likely that this country would be singled out significantly for “non-compliance” now. Occasional ructions (is it 35 years since Schultz confronted Lange?) seem to be more fits of pique than anything serious. Geopolitically, over generations, it would seem to be no accident that all five members of the “5 Eyes” arrangement are the only five countries in the world that are English-speaking and have closely related political philosophies/cultures, and so we are stuck with each other for the long term. I venture to say NZ is not exactly a bulwark of this alliance and has never been counted on as such by the US, UK, Canada or Australia. Temporarily, Trump’s non-stance (rather, bumbling and indecision) on the international scene tends to be based on bromances with Putin, Kim, Duterte, and any other number of the world’s “strong men”. His (and Bolton/Pompeo’s) rhetoric with ALL allies is fractious. And luckily over the nearly two and a half years Trump has been the most powerful man in the world New Zealand has remained remarkably unaffected. I see this as getting off lightly in the circumstances.
Garbonza wrote:
“all five members of the “5 Eyes” arrangement are the only five countries in the world that are English-speaking and have closely related political philosophies/cultures, and so we are stuck with each other for the long term……And luckily over the nearly two and a half years Trump has been the most powerful man in the world New Zealand has remained remarkably unaffected.”
Except that among many other things that have happened to us in the past two and a half years, a man who embodies the 5 Eyes “philosophy” took that philosophy to its logical and most brutal conclusion by murdering 51 of us in the space of twenty minutes.