https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17332/china-new-zealand-five-eyes
The survival of the alliance in its current form, though, is under threat after Ms Ardern’s administration announced that it was making improved trade relations with Beijing its priority, rather than maintaining its support for Five Eyes.
“No matter if they have five eyes or ten eyes, as soon as they dare to harm China’s sovereignty, security or development interests, they should be careful lest their eyes be poked blind.” — Zhao Lijian, the spokesman for China’s foreign minister, BBC, November 19, 2020.
New Zealand’s naive approach to the threat posed by Beijing not only poses a threat to the future of the alliance itself. There is a distinct possibility that Wellington could find itself being expelled from the alliance over its pro-Beijing stance.
As a senior Western intelligence official recently commented about New Zealand’s continued membership of the alliance, the country was now “on the edge of viability as a member” of the alliance because of its “supine” attitude to China and its “compromised political system”.
New Zealand’s socialist government may believe that it is a good idea to throw in their lot with China’s communist rulers. But by doing so, they risk sacrificing their future to domination by China’s despots.
China is making a deliberate attempt to create divisions within the elite “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance by forging closer relations with the left-wing government of New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern.
The Five Eyes alliance, comprising the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, dates back to the Second World War, when a number of key allies decided to share intelligence in their bid to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan.
Today, maintaining intelligence-sharing cooperation between the five Anglophone nations is deemed essential to combating the threat posed by autocratic states, such as Russia and Communist China.