Anzac leaders reassert their commitment to Five Eyes
New Zealand and Australia have downplayed suggestions there’s any risk to the Five Eyes alliance, brought about by potential dealings with Chinese telco Huawei.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Australian counterpart Scott Morrison were responding to media questions that arose out of new comments from United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, which threaten to force a hard decision from both countries about dealings with Huawei. At a joint press conference in Auckland, the Anzac arm of the Five Eyes alliance presented a co-ordinated front to dispel any concern there was a vulnerability in the intelligence sharing network.
And during Morrison’s first official visit to New Zealand to meet with Ardern yesterday, both also played up the importance of trade with China.
‘‘If a country adopts this and puts it in some of their critical information systems, we won’t be able to share information with them,’’ Pompeo said during an interview with Fox Business.
‘‘In some cases there’s risk – we won’t even be able to co-locate American resources, an American embassy, an American military outpost.’’
Both Australia and New Zealand are Five Eyes countries alongside the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
It is the largest intelligence sharing network in the world.
While both leaders highlighted their independent decision making processes, neither entertained any suggestion there was a strain on the wider relationship.
‘‘The nature of our discussions are often prefaced by the fact we have our own processes and systems, and we of course make our own decisions based on our own national interests and based on our own independent foreign policy,’’ said Ardern.
‘‘On Huawei of course, you will well know our process is governed by TICSA [Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act 2013].
‘‘We are still in the middle of that process. At the moment the option of mitigation sits with Spark and that’s who the GCSB deal directly with.
‘‘And as I’ve always said, we are of course aware of other countries’ positions, but our position is our own.’’ Morrison echoed the sentiment.
‘‘I would only concur; we have different processes, but we arrived at similar decisions in our own independent way.
‘‘In fact it was a decision I took as Treasurer last year [to ban Huawei], consistent with our own legislation and our own national interests,’’ he said.
‘‘But it’s also important to note, as we discussed today ... we both welcome China’s economic development. We both think that’s a good thing and we want to see that continue because it’s meant a lot for our economies as well.’’
New Zealand’s external spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), has blocked an application from Spark to contract the building of its planned 5G network to Huawei, citing security concerns. Spark has not indicated whether it will appeal the decision. Australia has outright banned Huawei, and is far more hardline against dealings with China than New Zealand.
While it too has a free trade agreement with China, its citizens woke to news yesterday that Australian coal exports had been banned from entering at least one major port in China – a move largely understood to be a trade retaliation.
While New Zealand has been fearful of trade reprisals over some of its security decisions – including its partnership with the US and the Government’s Pacific Reset to counter an emerging Chinese presence in the region – it’s yet to eventuate here.
Both leaders downplayed the risks of that, and Morrison said ‘‘there was nothing to suggest’’ the coal ban was anything more than a regulatory issue.
‘‘This has happened before, this is not new,’’ he said.
Ardern and Morrison would not be drawn on whether there was any risk to the American relationship as both countries seem at risk of being squeezed in the middle of a soft battle for dominance between the US and China.
However, the members of the Five Eyes alliance all sit at slightly different points on a spectrum of unease over Huawei and its links with the Chinese Government.
Trade implications are the primary reason for that, despite a recent move from all five countries to sheet responsibility for a global cyber attack back to the Chinese Government. Huawei has had a foothold in networks in the UK for more than 15 years, however that country is now reassessing its relationship with the telco.
Comments made by UK National Cyber Security Centre head Ciaran Martin this week have put a clear stop in front of diplomatic equivocations over the use of Huawei tech. While it could be reassessed, Martin said Huawei tech was not cleared to be deployed in any of the UK’s sensitive networks. The NCSC also said ‘‘serious’’ engineering problems could leave civilian networks vulnerable to compromise.
Together in the Pacific
In a statement released after their meeting, Ardern and Morrison welcomed the ‘‘strong alignment’’ between New Zealand’s Pacific Reset and Australia’s Pacific Step-Up. They agreed to ‘‘strengthen their partnerships with Pacific island countries and territories, the Pacific Islands Forum and other regional institutions in support of the Blue Pacific’’.
The pair also singled out – without naming China – that country’s military presence in the South China Sea, and ‘‘urged all claimants to take meaningful steps to ease tensions and build trust, including through dialogue’’.
The leaders shared views on foreign interference, and agreed that New Zealand and Australia would continue to work together closely to address this issue.
Refugees and detainees
Predictably, both leaders were split over Australia’s hardline policy of deporting detainees to New Zealand who had only tenuous links to this country – technical citizens who had never set foot on this side of the Tasman.
Ardern opened the press conference by saying New Zealand and Australia’s relationship transcended Government; the two countries were not just friends, but family. However that allowed for more frank conversations to be had, and Ardern ramped up her rhetoric on the deportee issue, calling it ‘‘corrosive’’ to the relationship. Turnbull said his Government would seek to manage the issue ‘‘sensitively’’ but would continue to treat the issue of deportations seriously.
‘‘Australia has well-defined immigration and citizenship laws. Visas are not citizenship, visas are provided on the basis that when they’re in Australia they’re not committing crimes,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s always been a hallmark of our Government and previous Governments.’’
A similar tension exists over New Zealand’s open invitation to host 150 refugees from the Australian detention centre of Manus Island. Morrison said he had ‘‘no plans to take up New Zealand on its offer’’.
Still, the move was likely to feed into Australian perceptions New Zealand was reaping the benefits of Australia’s border security system, while failing to lift its weight, in helping deter refugees from making the journey to Australasia by boat.