NZ signs Five Eyes statement urging China to respect Hong Kong freedoms

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has signed up to a Five Eyes statement condemning the recent elections in Hong Kong after a huge fuss earlier this year over New Zealand putting its name to such statements.

The statement condemns the erosion of democratic elements of Hong Kong which had been guaranteed when Britain handed back to China in 1997.

Under new security laws, candidates have to be vetted by Beijing, and many opponents of the laws have been imprisoned.

The statement is in the names of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the five countries in the Five Eyes intelligence network: New Zealand, Australia, the United States, Canada and Britain.

"We also remain gravely concerned at the wider chilling effect of the National Security Law and the growing restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, which are being felt across civil society.

"NGOs, trade unions and human rights organisations not supportive of the Government's agenda have been forced to disband or leave, while media freedoms are being curtailed at pace.

"Protecting space for peaceful alternative views is the most effective way to ensure the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong.

"We urge the People's Republic of China to act in accordance with its international obligations to respect protected rights and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, including those guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration."

Former Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters. Photo / Michael Craig

Former Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and his successor, Mahuta, faced pressure to sign up to strongly worded statements about China's crackdown in Hong Kong and its treatment of Muslim Uighur in Xinjian province.

At a press conference in April after a speech about China, Mahuta said New Zealand did not want the Five Eyes to be the first port of call in making public statements about human rights in China.

"That is a matter that we have raised with Five Eyes partners that we are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of Five Eyes," she said.

Both Peters and Mahuta had signed up to joint statements by the five countries (August 2020 by Peters and November 2020 by Mahuta).

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Mark Mitchell

But Mahuta and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made it clear that New Zealand didn't want to habitually express its foreign policy statements through Five Eyes.

They did not rule out future joint statements but it did not see Five Eyes as its primary vehicle of diplomacy in issues to do with human rights in China.

That led to some commentators suggesting that New Zealand was soft on China, not committed to the intelligence network, which has always been denied, and even raised the prospect of New Zealand being kicked out of it.

Most did not acknowledge that New Zealand had continued to make public statements opposing developments in Hong Kong or in Xinjiang – six throughout last year and up to April this year and eight including the two Five Eyes statements.

Today's statement is the first five-country statement Mahuta has signed this year.

New Zealand, as a small country, has often taken a less strident or more nuanced stance on other issues to do with China.

The most recent alternative position from New Zealand may have added to the impetus for New Zealand to sign up to the Hong Kong statement, lest it be seen as too soft on China.

In what was clearly a coordinated action, US, Australia, Britain and Canada joined a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics to be held in February 2022, each refusing to send Government representatives.

Chinese President Xi Jinping in Auckland during a visit to New Zealand in 2014. Photo / Greg Bowker

Ardern, on the other hand, wished President Xi Jinping well for the games during an Apec bilateral meeting via video – and has taken a position of not sending Government ministers but on the basis of logistics and Covid-19.

The five countries have also taken different positions on whether the treatment of Uighurs should be termed genocide. The legislatures of the United States, Canada and Britain have passed resolutions referring to genocide but Australia and New Zealand have not.

The Australians may have wanted to avoid inviting even more economic coercion from China against its exporters than is already the case for being stridently critical of China.

The New Zealand Parliament unanimously passed a resolution in May saying: That this House is gravely concerned about the severe human rights abuses taking place against Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and that it call on the Government to work with the United Nations, international partners, and to work with all relevant instruments of international law to bring these abuses to an end.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern meets Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing during a 24-hour visit to China in April, 2019. Photo / NZ Govt.

In a new development in September to counterbalance the rapid expansion of the Chinese military, three of the Five Eyes have formed a new security pact, Australia, the United States and Britain, to supply Australia with nuclear powered submarines.

But White House security officials have made it clear that other advanced technologies could be shared with like-minded countries such as New Zealand and Canada.