Are we now a US pawn?

Way back during the 1996 election campaign, I heard Winston Peters speak. He had Labour’s hapless Ma¯ ori MPs in his sights. ‘‘They are lions on the marae, but when they get into Parliament, they go quiet. They become lambs. Lions on the marae; lambs in Parliament!’’ The crowd loved it and that year NZ First entered government as well as cleaning up the five Ma¯ ori seats.

The lion-hearted Peters was in similar combative mood in a recent Washington speech, not checked by his form teacher, Jacinda Ardern. Peters wanted to ‘‘enlist greater US support’’ in the Pacific. He loudly worried the region is ‘‘becoming more contested and its security is ever more fragile. We unashamedly ask the United States to engage more’’ .

Apparently Kiwis are ‘‘archly concerned by the asymmetries at play in the region at a time when larger players are renewing their interest in the Pacific with an attendant level of strategic competition’’.

Surely not our good friends China? Of all the barbecues I’ve attended this summer, I’ve not met one person ‘‘archly concerned by the asymmetries at play in the Pacific’’. Most have been archly concerned about a) heat b) bush fires c) rental prices d) the loudness of cicadas e) freedom campers f) Lime scooters.

When Peters spoke at a parliamentary event to celebrate Chinese New Year on February 14, with the Chinese ambassador present, I wondered if his lion-like rhetoric would turn the gathering into a Valentines Day massacre. Yet he was so lamb-like you could get a Chinese tourist to feed him a bottle then turn him into a pair of lambskin slippers. ‘‘China matters to New Zealand,’’ he baa-ed. ‘‘We have important links built on a foundation of historical and contemporary connections between our two peoples.’’ The flattery continued as if it was Oscars night. ‘‘Actor’’ in Wellington; global threat in Washington.

Since we banned Huawei’s potential involvement in the 5G network we’ve seen a Chinese tourism summit cancelled, articles in Chinese papers discouraging tourists from visiting and Ardern’s class trip to Beijing put on permanent hold. Do we need this grief with our biggest trading partner?

You need only look at our past involvement in Afghanistan to know New Zealand does things it doesn’t believe in, so as not to offend the US. There seems little evidence China would spy on us if Huawei won the 5G bid. The real reason is we would get offside with our Five Eyes friends, especially the US.

Should we forget all our democratic principles and focus purely on trade? No. New Zealand has often acted on principle without considering trade consequences. But I can’t find any noble democratic sentiments behind our 5G decision. If we were to lose exports to China because we criticised their awful treatment of the Uighur people, that’s at least something to seriously debate.

Philip Burdon, former National minister and co-founder of the Asia NZ Foundation, is one of many concerned. ‘‘We must not allow ourselves to become a pawn for American strategic thinking in what is very likely going to become an increasingly acrimonious and adversarial relationship,’’ he wrote recently. Hear, hear.

But are our current National MPs so enlightened? Though he criticised the Government over China, Simon Bridges doesn’t know if he would allow Huawei to run 5G here. I suspect things would be no different under National. Kiwis who want a government that follows a truly independent foreign policy might be waiting a long time.