Aukus, rogue spies and Kiwi racism
Former National and ACT leader Don Brash is right that before Aotearoa New Zealand decides to join a military alliance like Aukus, more public discussion is required. Aukus is so transparently aimed at our largest trading partner China.
That view was echoed by former Labour prime minister Helen Clark, when she said this “drift in positioning” by the current Government was taking the country in a very different course that voters had not been “sensitised” to.
I suspect the public is being sensitised, but not in the way Clark is rightly advocating.
In March, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security made the shocking revelation that our highest security agency, the GCSB, had been hosting a foreign partner’s intelligence hardware for seven years without the knowledge of the minister in charge. The identity of the foreign partner agency was, however, kept secret.
Investigative journalist Nicky Hager noted the mystery spy equipment “appears strongly to be a top-secret United States surveillance system” with the ability to support capture-kill operations on targeted people using drones, bombs and special operations.
Security analyst Paul Buchanan considered the inspector-general’s revelation of total government unawareness to be astounding.
What’s curious is that just a week later, before the public had had time to cogitate on the seriousness of this breach, the GCSB made its own revelation that, back in 2021, a Chinese hacking group linked to Beijing’s Ministry of State Security had hacked the systems of the parliamentary counsel office and the Parliamentary Service.
The revelation was choreographed with similar statements by the US and United Kingdom on similar attacks.
The cynic could be excused for thinking the GCSB’s timely revelation to be the diversionary art of throwing a dead cat on the public table. And in the process it diverted public attention to the danger posed by China. Is the sequence of events a coincidence or are we being played?
I’m not arguing that China’s global intentions are noble. But I do think the public need to have a very nuanced understanding of the geopolitics being played out.
In the recent flurry of international meetings by Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon we were told that changing geopolitics requires us to align New Zealand with our traditional allies who have similar democratic institutions and values.
As Don Brash points out, the US has a history of backing non-democratic regimes and continues to do so to maintain its global domination.
As for our prime minister and foreign minister, while they champion these values on the international stage, senior ministers from their coalition government have been busy at home attacking the independence of our judiciary.
These attacks have been serious enough to marshal the president of the New Zealand Law Society, Frazer Barton, to publicly warn that it risks undermining our democracy (The Post, April 19).
Talking about attacks on the independence of the judiciary, we should also not be too eager to bed down with the US while there is a chance of Donald Trump being returned as president. The world will be a more dangerous place under his leadership. The Wall Street Journal has already noted that the prospect of a Trump victory is nudging Europe closer to China.
Another factor to consider is the impact of any worsening of ties with China on the New Zealand Chinese community. New Zealand has a past history of racism against Chinese immigrants working in the goldmines of Otago in the 1860s. There was an anti-Chinese committee set up in Nelson and other groups like the AntiAsiaticLeague.
Despite the integration of succeeding generations of Chinese into mainstream Kiwi life, it does not seem to take much for racism to rear its head. The Covid-19 pandemic provides a clear example.
As Human Rights Watch noted in May 2020: “Government leaders and senior officials in some instances have directly or indirectly encouraged hate crimes, racism or xenophobia by using anti-Chinese rhetoric.” US President Trump’s use of the term “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan flu” have encouraged hate speech.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, a Ministry of Education funded survey in 2022 found 40% of Asian Kiwis had experienced racism since the start of the pandemic. Author Dr Lynne SoonChean Park said there needs to be an understanding of the interplay between national crises and increased explicit racism.
New Zealanders are generally an inclusive tolerant society, but there is a racist underbelly founded in its colonial roots. We have seen politicians dog whistle and agitate this to swell their vote banks.
In the event of New Zealand getting caught up in any US-led “clash” with China there is a danger that anti-Chinese rhetoric by politicians could fan hate crimes against our Kiwi citizens of Chinese origin.
... the public need to have a very nuanced understanding of the geopolitics being played out.