New Zealand’s stance on China has deep implications for the Five Eyes alliance

Analysis: Country has confirmed itself the weak link in the intelligence chain it joined with the US, UK, Canada and Australia

Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand liberal prime minister has offended devotees of the Anglosphere by indicating she is not prepared to take her country into the kind of trade war with China that Australia has found itself facing.

Her stance, asserting her country's sovereignty, has potentially deep implications for the Five Eyes" alliance, the intelligence sharing partnership that emerged after the second world war and blossomed in the cold war. Indeed some say New Zealand has confirmed itself as the weak link in the intelligence chain that it joined with the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia.