New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said on Monday that her country was uncomfortable extending information to the United States and other nations when it came to China. Bloomberg reported.
“We have argued with our Five Eyes partners that we are uncomfortable with expanding the mission of the Five Eyes relationship,” Mahuta told reporters in Wellington on Monday. “We would much rather look for multilateral opportunities to express our interests on a number of issues.”
The Five Eyes alliances date back to World War II and include the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The new statement highlights how tensions around China may divide the United States by some of its allies.
New Zealand did not join the other members of Five Eyes in a joint statement following the mass arrests in Hong Kong in January, according to Bloomberg.
“New Zealand has been very clear not to invoke Five Eyes as the first point of contact for messaging on a number of issues that really exist outside the Five Eyes jurisdiction,” Mahuta said in the Bloomberg report.
“I did not favor this type of approach and I expressed this to the partners of Five Eyes. What we would prefer is to look for other supports in the region that may or may not be those countries. ”