Andrew Bolt: Why New Zealand’s folly on China should alarm us

New Zealand’s foreign minister has taken wokeness to dangerous new levels by going soft on a brutal regime that has jailed a million Muslims.

Being woke is now a threat to our security. Watch New Zealand’s foreign minister selling Australia out to China on the say-so of a mythical Maori monster.

Nanaia Mahuta comes from a privileged family. Her father studied at Oxford before becoming a politician, academic and a knight.

Mahuta herself went to an Anglican boarding school before becoming an academic, too, but then got deep into identity politics.

Five years ago this woke warrior got her chin tattooed with a moko to announce she was a Maori leader. Now she’s the foreign minister of a country that’s been our ally for more than 100 years.

Or that was …

This week Mahuta gave an extraordinary speech to explain why she was going so soft on China.

There’s a lot to explain, particularly to Australians.

Australia and New Zealand are members of the “Five Eyes”, along with the United States, Britain and Canada, that shares intelligence to meet common threats.

But when the Five Eyes allies issued a statement criticising China for arresting democracy campaigners in Hong Kong, Mahuta refused to sign it.

When Australia and the other Five Eyes allies then joined other democracies to reject a discredited World Health Organisation report that whitewashed China’s role in the coronavirus pandemic, Mahuta refused to sign that, too.

And this week she said she didn’t like ganging up against China like this: “We are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the Five Eyes. We would much rather prefer to look for multilateral opportunities to express our interests.”

In fact, as Mahuta said in her speech this week, New Zealand’s “diplomacy favours dialogue”. That’s why it publicly criticises China’s dictatorship only rarely. And just as rarely defends Australia from China’s furious bullying.

Until Mahuta’s speech this week, I thought New Zealand was just being naive about the genocidal Chinese regime, and cowardly, too. Not to mention greedy, grabbing Chinese rewards for keeping quiet, while leaving the fight for freedom to other democracies.

But Mahuta’s bizarre speech makes clear that wokeness – and a giant water serpent – is also inspiring her kowtowing to tyranny.

Mahuta used her speech to rhapsodise about the taniwha, a giant serpent or dragon of Maori mythology which supposedly hides in seas, lakes and rivers, and which this former Anglican schoolgirl sees as a nature god … and inspiration.

“Taniwha are protectors or guardians, often of water, and hold dominion over rivers, seas, lands and territories,” she explained.

“Deeply steeped in culture, they are spiritual and one with nature … And like the [Chinese] dragon, they … are a symbol of leadership, prestige and strength, and are to be revered.”

Until Mahuta’s speech this week, I thought New Zealand was just being naive about the genocidal Chinese regime, and cowardly, too. Picture: Getty Images

That’s right. To Mahuta, the taniwha are like China’s equally mythical dragon, and bring democratic New Zealand closer to communist China.

“I see the taniwha and the dragon as symbols of the strength of our particular customs, traditions and values, that aren’t always the same, but need to be maintained and respected.

“And on that virtue we have together developed the mature relationship we have today.”

Very kooky. But also sinister, as Mahuta went on and on about this imaginary monster, using it as an excuse to portray the Chinese communist regime’s brutal grip on its people as just a cultural difference deserving respect, rather than a moral crime deserving censure.

“The dragon and the taniwha may share similar characteristics but they exist in very different environmental conditions,” Mahuta said.

“The perspective each holds about the ‘optimum’ environment for survival such as a country’s political system, democratic institutions, freedoms and liberties can and have shown to be significantly different.”

What’s so stupid about this prattling is that New Zealand is not actually dealing with a dragon. It is dealing with a brutal regime that crushes democracy, jails a million Muslims, threatens war against Taiwan and steals the South China Sea.

Yet in Mahuta’s woke world, China is a sensitive dragon that may breathe fire but – who knew? – worries about global warming.

“The taniwha and the dragon know, for example, that their ecosystem is rapidly experiencing change because of climate change … These are areas for further co-operation.”

In some green den, hazy with marijuana smoke and unchained from responsibility, Mahuta’s new-age theology with its earth-worshipping serpents may be good for a giggle.

But Mahuta is the foreign minister of a country in one of the world’s most significant intelligence-sharing partnerships, yet citing some imaginary monster to explain why she’s splitting its resistance to a dictatorial superpower that threatens them all.

That makes her wokeness not just a joke but a danger.