Is the price of Five Eyes membership too high?

New Zealand business is watching on in horror as China slams Australian exporters with punitive duties on nearly all their exports bar iron ore, and that could yet be added.

Could this happen here? Given our part in the Five Eyes intelligence network (or as the Aussies call it, Four Eyes and a blink, referring to New Zealand’s tiny defence capability) it is a real possibility and raises questions about our membership, the main benefit of which is access to US intelligence.

Remember, these are the guys who reckoned Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Is it worth it?

What does a guy from a Northland village know about any of this? Well, I’ve been a leadership regular at Washington’s Georgetown University, their top foreign affairs school.

I’ve dined with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and know her narrow world view consisting of the US, European Union and the Middle East; no mention of China, India or Brazil.

I’ve been briefed by Homeland Security in Pentagon Place about the risks of the fuelcarrying rail tunnel passing under the Washington seats of government, I’ve attended briefings from the head of their National Intelligence Committee, whose answer to the question, ‘‘what is the most populous Islamic country’’ was Saudi Arabia (when it is clearly Indonesia), prompting US attendees to tell me not to ask trick questions.

I’ve dined at the head offices of Nokia in Helsinki and Huawei in Shenzhen, introduced their founder to our prime minister in Beijing and attended lunch celebrating our free trade agreement with China in the Great Hall in Tiananmen Square.

On top of that, for a while I was part-owner of a newspaper in St Petersburg in Russia. So I reckon I’ve got credibility to offer my opinion.

My big worry is that our officials at the Government Communications Security Bureau and New Zealand Defence Force will be wined and dined by the Americans, and they won’t want to give up this unearned status. They will advise our Government just how important it is to stay in the Five Eyes, when we really should sell our seat there to our old enemy, Japan, and pursue an independent role free of commitment to either China or America.

We have fought alongside the US in most of their wars but they cut us out for decades over the nuclear ships issue and we have long-term goodwill in China thanks to Rewi Alley, the New Zealand-born writer who joined chairman Mao Zedong’s Long March.

We then followed up with our free-trade agreement.

Do we really care about the Spratly Islands? Do we really need to make a fuss over Uyghur rights in China when we don’t do the same over US police shooting black citizens?

Trade sanctions of the type Australia is facing are a weapon used by both the US and China.

So let’s have a debate on whether we need Five Eyes, or whether it’s time for us to trade on independently.