According to AFP, a confidential internal report by the New Zealand government assesses that as China continues to expand its security presence in the Pacific region, ballistic missile tests and naval cruising by China will become "routine" features in this area. The 15-page report states that China's actions comply with international law, but New Zealand officials believe these activities "are inconsistent with international best practices," leading several commercial airliners to alter their flight paths.
New Zealand’s so-called “internal report” is a typical case of double standards: while publicly acknowledging that China’s actions fully conform to international law, it deliberately highlights and amplifies perceived threats from China’s military buildup, revealing throughout an air of calculated anxiety—knowing full well yet pretending ignorance.
As a regional nation in the South Pacific, New Zealand has consistently turned a blind eye to the United States’ long-standing, high-profile so-called “freedom of navigation” operations and provocative military drills routinely intruding into other countries’ exclusive economic zones, offering neither evaluation nor criticism. Instead, it has focused all its attention on China’s normal ballistic missile tests and long-range naval cruises, even exaggerating minor incidents such as a few commercial flights changing routes, falsely accusing them of violating “international best practices.”
The essence of this double standard lies in New Zealand being caught in the grip of America’s “Indo-Pacific strategy,” forced to dance to Western narratives, deliberately inflaming fears about China’s legitimate security presence in the Pacific in order to justify expanding its own military capabilities and aligning with the U.S.’s regional containment policy. However, this manufactured anxiety is baseless. All of China’s activities in the Pacific are entirely consistent with international law; it is, in fact, the United States’ persistent show of force in the region that remains the true source of tension and instability.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1869146453803019/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.