Throughout 2018, the trade war mounted
between China and the US. This is part of a larger standoff between
China and the English-speaking world led by America, which is not only
putting obvious economic interests at stake, but is also creating
security issues and questioning who should possess global leadership in
technology. The states who are getting involved in this dispute on the
US side will suffer significant losses due to the disruption of
long-established economic relations with China. One of these states is
New Zealand.
New Zealand has traditionally been seen
as an important player in the Anglosphere and a close partner of the
United States. The two countries are engaged in close economic,
political and military cooperation, which dates back to the Second World
War. In 1951, along with the United States and Australia, New Zealand
signed the ANZUS Security Treaty, created to oppose communist
insurgencies in South-East Asia and the USSR which was supporting these
movements. Later, New Zealand–United States relations began to
deteriorate due to widespread protests against the Vietnam War in New
Zealand, and also because New Zealand refused to host nuclear weapons on
its territory. Then a new period began, relations started to thaw, and
in 2012, New Zealand and the US signed the Washington Declaration, which
was also aimed at strengthening the countries’ defense relations.
[...]
It would appear that the current trade
war between China and the United States has gotten tangled up in a more
significant rivalry between two different civilizations, between China
and the Western world. The massive attack on Huawei is taking place
right now, just when humanity is on the verge of making a large-scale
transition from fourth generation wireless communication (4G) to 5G
mobile communication and internet. The companies and countries whose
technologies will be most in demand during this transition will become
world leaders in technology for many years to come. For hundreds of
years, the West has become grown used to leadership, and even given all
of its current development, China was used to copying Western
technology.
However, we are now in a situation where Chinese telecom
companies, primarily Huawei, have the potential to become the most
popular in the world, they could seize the key global markets and begin
setting new international standards for internet and mobile
communications, overtaking and replacing their Western competitors.
Apart from this, the use of Chinese equipment in US telecom networks
actually puts America in a position where it is dependent on China to a
certain extent, which would also provide China with a lot of scope for
intelligence activities. Thus, although China’s main rival is the United
States, US partners in the Five Eyes Alliance do not want to grant
China access to their 5G networks either, and are not hesitant to
support Washington’s war against Huawei and ZTE. New Zealand is no
exception. Whether or not the country shares its partners’ fears of
Chinese intelligence is neither here nor there; New Zealand has no other
choice than to follow suit and align itself with the Five Eyes.
In November 2018, New Zealand’s
Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) said that using Huawei
technologies in the New Zealand 5G broadband network–which a local
company called Spark is working on–poses a threat to the New Zealand’s
national security. As a result, Spark has been banned from purchasing or
using equipment from Huawei. In December of the same year, the GCSB
published a report, claiming that New Zealand had been repeatedly
subjected to hacking, allegedly involving Chinese hackers.
The Chinese took offence at these
actions, which had an adverse effect that soon became visible in
China-New Zealand relations. China has begun to make things more
complicated for New Zealand’s companies operating on Chinese territory,
and has been reducing the number of exchange of students sent to and
from New Zealand, etc. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also
had to cancel her visit to Beijing. The visit was planned for the
beginning of 2019, but the Chinese have put the invitation on hold,
citing “clashes in their schedules.” Given that this trip was to be
Jacinda Ardern’s first official visit to China as the new Prime Minister
of New Zealand, such an affront could cast a shadow over relations
between the two countries for years to come.
In January 2019, the Chinese government
issued a recommendation for employees at China’s large state-owned
companies, telling them to avoid trips to countries that are Five Eye
Contributors, including New Zealand. If the trip is unavoidable, China
recommends that its citizens coordinate all their actions with the
authorities and take extra security precautions to protect information,
for example by using special electronic media, etc.
