An article by New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager, published on the website Newsroom on October 9, sheds light on the advanced preparations by the United States and its allies for all-out war against China.

The article is based on handwritten notes taken by a New Zealand Defence Force official during a meeting of the Five Eyes, held at Britain’s Royal Navy Warfighting Centre in Portsmouth from May 13-16 in 2024. The notes were mistakenly left in an op shop (thrift store) and discovered by a member of the public in August 2025, providing a rare glimpse of secret discussions between the imperialist powers’ war planners.

The Five Eyes originated during World War II. For decades, it has been the key mechanism for the coordination of global surveillance and sharing of intelligence between the spy agencies of the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. 

More than just an intelligence-sharing network, however, the Five Eyes is now playing a central role in the web of military alliances led by US imperialism, which is fomenting wars throughout the world—against Russia, in the Middle East, and especially in the militarisation of the Indo-Pacific region against China.

A 211-word press statement by the British Strategic Command, dated May 20, 2024, described the “Five Eyes Combined Digital Leadership Forum” in broad terms as “an opportunity to share insights and ideas, and exchange and coordinate our data, digital and technology approaches with close allies.” It discussed “digital deterrence”, “cyber resilience” and artificial intelligence, with the aim of enhancing “digital interoperability between allies” to produce “an even more resilient and unified group ready to face current and future threats.”

Newsroom reports that the main focus of discussion, kept secret from the public, “was a network described as a globally integrated, all-domain, command and control system.”

Hager explains: 

“A command and control system means computer programmes that allow all enemy (red) and friendly (blue) military forces to be tracked and orders to be sent for attacks. All Domain means navy, land, air and space forces; and globally-integrated means intelligence and military actions can be launched and directed anywhere in the world. The meeting notes suggest this system is to be operational in 2027-2030. It is the electronic infrastructure for a superpower confrontation.”

The NZ official’s notes state that the aim is to “develop a credible and effective combined joint all-domain [command and control] capability for counter-PRC Operations.” PRC stands for the People’s Republic of China.

Hager continues:

“In the staffer’s notes we hear the urgency coming from the US and UK commanders. The officer writes of ‘The Need to move even faster to get it into the hands of the forces,’ where ‘it’ is the war-ready intelligence making up the ‘federated [Five Eyes] data fabric.’ This is a common theme in US military publications: the urgent need to speed up the development of advanced war fighting capabilities in order to confront China.”

The handwritten notes make clear that systems are being developed—including what are referred to as Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE)—to seamlessly integrate the activities of all the Five Eyes countries’ militaries to prepare them for “peer-level conflict.” 

In other words, the imperialist allies are not preparing for a conflict against a weak, under-developed country such as Afghanistan. Nor are they building up their navies to counter drug trafficking or to provide disaster relief to countries in the Pacific—justifications commonly put forward by governments in Australia and New Zealand. They are readying for war against the main economic rival of US imperialism, i.e., China.

All of this is being hidden from the population in each of the Five Eyes countries. The revelations in the Newsroom article were not denied by the New Zealand Defence Force. Asked whether NZDF had been involved in discussions about war against China at the Portsmouth meeting, a spokesperson told Newsroom: “NZDF routinely considers and plans for a range of scenarios and events.” Yet the article has been ignored by the US, Canadian, British and Australian media, and by other New Zealand publications. 

An incessant propaganda barrage in the corporate media depicts China as an aggressive power, seeking to expand its territory in the South China Sea and across the Pacific, and with plans for an invasion of Taiwan in the near future. 

The reality is that the imperialist powers, led by the US, are engaged in a rapid military build-up because, as the Five Eyes meeting notes make clear, they are working to a timetable for launching a war of aggression. The aim is to establish total control over the resources and markets of Asia and to eliminate China as an economic rival to the US by reducing it to colonial status.

Regular military exercises are being carried out by the Five Eyes countries and regional allies including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, in an attempt to provoke Beijing into retaliating and thus provide pretexts for further US escalation.

Through the AUKUS military pact and other arrangements, Australia is being rapidly militarised to serve as a base for anti-China operations.

The military encirclement and warmongering against China has been underway at least since the “pivot to Asia” strategy announced in 2011 by US President Barack Obama. But the drive to war has accelerated sharply in recent years, particularly following the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

US attacks against Iran and threats against Venezuela, as well as the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, are all aimed at rolling back China’s economic influence. Through its global tariffs, the Trump administration is carrying out economic war against China. 

In May, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that China posed an “imminent” threat and demanded that US allies in Asia end their attempts to manoeuvre between China and the US. He said they had to prepare for war over Taiwan as early as 2027. This aligns with the timeframe discussed at last year’s Five Eyes meeting for implementing an all-domain command and control system.

The imperialist powers have embarked on an expanding global war, which is leading inexorably to a clash between nuclear-armed powers. Two years of mass, global protests against the genocide in Gaza have proven that it is useless to appeal to the fascist Trump regime or any of its allies to change course. They are being driven to violently redivide the world, not by subjective whims, but by the objective crisis of capitalism.

The only force powerful enough to stop this unfolding catastrophe is the international working class, mobilised on the basis of a socialist program, to put an end to the capitalist and imperialist system which is the root cause of war.