National self-immolation

Lucy Craymer’s What’s the big deal about Five Eyes anyway? (April 29) was brilliantly balanced and informed, but perhaps the Five Eyes is being given too much relevance – there’s no immediate physical threat to the West, just an economic one.

If you oppose pushy non-democratic countries that aspire to dominate you, don’t do business with them. The West’s current problem is not China, but itself.

Jacinda Ardern quickly repackaged Nanaia Mahuta’s anti-Western rhetoric, downplaying New Zealand’s Five Eyes membership as not the best platform.

But Ardern’s deference of national interests to an alternative international rules-based system would be no parish picnic either.

Ardern and Mahuta, while seeing capitalism as the beˆ te noir of Western economies, still sign up to China’s assertive capitalist intrusion – no equality of principle there. Their take on Western

democracy also seems disloyal – as something stemming from white patriarchal colonialism rather than Ancient Greece.

Human kindness flourishes more from countries valuing individual determination, yet seeping from our leadership right now is not individual free will but national self-immolation – of endless politicised grievances – indicting our entire modern culture.

We’ll never counter the awe of some of China’s successes if we don’t raise work and study standards, and stop bickering about each other’s history.

Michael L Munro, Ngaio