New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said on Monday that her country felt uncomfortable expanding intelligence with the United States and other countries as far as China was concerned. Bloomberg reported.
“We have raised with Five Eyes partners that we are uncomfortable expanding the power of the Five Eyes relationship,” Mahuta told reporters in Wellington on Monday. “We prefer to seek multilateral opportunities to express our interests on a number of issues.”
The Five Eyes alliances date from World War II and include the USA, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The new statement highlights how tensions around China could separate the United States from some of its allies.
According to Bloomberg, New Zealand did not join the other Five Eyes members in a joint statement following mass arrests in Hong Kong in January.
“New Zealand was very clear not to call the Five Eyes as the first point of contact to send out messages on a range of issues that exist outside the competence of the Five Eyes,” Mahuta said in the Bloomberg report. said.
“We did not prefer that kind of approach and expressed it to Five Eyes partners. What we prefer is to look for other support in the region that may or may not be the countries. ”