FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Zealand, Wikileaks and World War

Wellington (12 December 2010)

The National-led government is moving New Zealand dangerously close to the United States, which could easily entangle us in war in the near future, says Dr Stevan Eldred-Grigg, responding to the latest Wikileaks.

Eldred-Grigg is author of The Great Wrong War, the newest and most controversial history ever published about New Zealand in the First World War. The nation, he claims, was led into the disaster of that war by a government policy of identifying too closely with one great power, which in turn meant buying into the fights of that great power. Wikileaks has revealed that the National-led government of New Zealand seeks to be very close to the United States. John Key was defined by US diplomats earlier this year as having a ‘strongly personal pro-American outlook,’ backed by a similarly strong outlook in ‘the National Party-led coalition government he heads … ’[i]

Eldred-Grigg argues on the basis of his study of our policy before and during the First World War that the national interests of New Zealand in the early 20th century, and now once more in the early 21st century, have never coincided exactly with the national interests of any other country. New Zealand should avoid close alliances, he concludes, and follow a policy of balancing one great power against another. The relationship with China, he adds, must be as close as the relationship with the United States.

ENDS

author website: www.eldred-grigg.com
for more information on The Great Wrong War: http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/All_Books_47.aspx?AuthorId=127759

[i] https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9H4zSibZV15MGYwZjcwZmQtNWUwNC00ZGE1LTgwNTItMjFjY2IyOTU4ZjRh&hl=en

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