New Zealand has joined the debate over China’s spreading influence in the South Pacific, with a prominent critic of Beijing’s policies complaining of several break-ins at her home and office and a threatening letter.
Professor Anne-Marie Brady, an academic at New Zealand’s Christ Church-based University of Canterbury and the Wilson Center in Washington DC, related the incidents while she was giving testimony at an Australian parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference, mainly Chinese, in that country’s political system.
“I had a break-in in my office last December. I received a warning letter, this week, that I was about to be attacked. And yesterday I had a break-in at my house,” she said. “I had three laptops — including one used for work — stolen. And phones. Police are now investigating that,” she said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also ordered New Zealand’s security agencies to look into the incidents, which came after associates of Brady in China had been questioned by Ministry of State Security officials.
In September, the Wilson Center published a hard-hitting report authored by Brady called “Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping” that details Chinese tactics to exert influence in the South Pacific through bodies like the Communist Party United Front Work Department (UFWD).
The UFWD pressures Chinese living abroad to conform to party doctrines, discredits or even neutralizes opponents of the regime and cultivates figures who can advance China’s objectives in foreign political systems.
One of its Pacific offshoots is the Australian Council for the Peaceful Reunification of China, which has donated to legislators in Canberra.
In 2017, it was revealed that Yian Yang, a member of New Zealand’s parliament from the then-National Party government, had been an instructor at a Chinese espionage school before he migrated.
As a parliamentarian, Yian had lobbied ministers to remove a security block on another person born in Chinese who was seeking an armed forces position. The ban, however, was not lifted.
Brady believes China is focusing on New Zealand because it is the most flexible member of the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance comprised of the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Anxious to preserve its key trade partnership, Wellington has taken a largely neutral position on such contentious issues as China’s reclamation activities and assertiveness in the South China Sea, though it is being pressured by Australia and the US to adopt a tougher stance.
The country also belongs to the ABCA Armies program, which aims to standardize military training and equipment interoperability between the Five Eyes members, and is a partner state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“Breaking New Zealand out of these military groupings and away from its traditional partners, or at the very least, getting New Zealand to agree to stop spying on China for the Five Eyes, would be a major coup for China’s strategic goal of becoming a global great power,” Brady wrote in her study.
Although it is a minor player in international affairs, New Zealand arguably has the greatest influence over the even smaller Pacific island nations: it is directly responsible for the defense and foreign affairs of the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau and has cultural ties with Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu.
There is speculation that China may use its growing leverage in the Pacific to establish a naval base to counter the strategic advantage of the US’ military installations at Guam, in the Micronesian islands east of the Philippines.
A 2015 paper by Yu Chang Sen, deputy head of the National Center of Oceanic Studies at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University, said that Beijing views Guam as the second of three offensive rings that the US had formed to strategically encircle China.
The configuration spreads out from Guam to Micronesia (including the Marshall Islands and the Marianas), to parts of Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu), and then down to Australia and New Zealand.
He said China was also anxious to protect its maritime access through what it terms the ‘South Pacific Line’, a passage stretching for 10,000 nautical miles from East Asia to South America, Australia and New Zealand. South Pacific islands are scattered across this sea lane.
Most Western analysts are skeptical that China would risk a confrontation with the US and Australia, which are in a better position to respond than China’s neighbors in the South China Sea. But if a confrontation does erupt, Fiji or Tonga, which are roughly in the middle of the US arc, could be battle grounds.
Fishing vessels, which China often uses as an advance fleet when starting to exert a territorial presence, already use the port of Suva in Fiji, as do satellite tracking ships used by the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
The latter have also been spotted in French Polynesia and New Zealand, though probably just in transit. China is also trying to court influence in Micronesia, but these islands are mostly under US patronage.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI), a regional security think tank that is partly funded by the Defense Department, called on Wednesday for New Zealand and Australia to reinvigorate their flagging diplomatic ties and present a common front against Chinese activities in the Pacific.
Noting that New Zealand made no mention of the prickly relationship between China and the US in its most recent defense white paper, ASPI said it would eventually have to make a choice between the two.
“It’s clear what’s happening: Australia is betting on a continued US role in the region — and its 2016 Defense White Paper says so — but New Zealand is keeping its options open,” security analyst Mark Thompson said.
“It’s impossible to say where each will be in five or 10 years, but, as the least committed of the pair, New Zealand is at greatest risk of becoming a Western ally with Chinese characteristics.”
James Greaves …
The USA wrote the book on interfereing in the affairs of others.
This crime has not even been proven and the 5-Eye countries are already jumping to conclusion that it is China’s fault.
I give my middle finger to these preposterous n unfounded accusations.
How much more ridiculous and hypocritical bordering on hysterical can the evil West stoop?
A people who genocided all their native tribes, stole their lands and sent them to reserves, a people who traded opium to our ancestors, who nuclear bombed the Japs even when knowing they were almost on the verge of surrendering………
These most evil people of the world have the cheek to portray as saints and go around parading as human rights and demoncrazy crusaders……
All of us are actually laughing in contempt but nobody is saying it openly because it is not the right time yet to ruffle up the feathers.
That doesn’t mean we will not raise these illegal occupations in future.
Shameful Westerners, evil to the hilt and they have the audacity to lecture others!
Where is your Christian justice and compassion?
Pui! Pui! Pui!
Ken Nguyen
You are a Beijing troll.
Not very friendly of the PRC at all. China was so much nicer when it was more humble.
Galen Linder: China works hard to CREATE THE IMPRESSION of not interfering in the affairs of other states: all the better as a cover for all of the under-the-table interference it does with considerable glee.
Amateur break-ins? Surely the Chinese can come up with something better to harass her? Sounds like the cry for help is a bit hysterical.
In New Zealand really? The Chinese bogeyman again? New Zealand is overestimating its importance. What do they have to offer any country? Its location alone is a logistical nightmare. For what again? Oh, their sheeps and cows taste better. This is just one of those articles from Atimes.
There are armies of China critics all around the world, what is so special about this woman that China would resort to harrassment on her?
I’ve been convinced for quite a while that Christian churches are the most fertile breeding grounds for China demonization. Scheming, lying, inciting, brainwashing, the whole bag of tricks of sabbotage, notably in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea.
It’s ironic that the house of god heartily adapts demon’s tactics. Hypocritically, honesty and integrity my foot.
the burden of western dillema… if there were some way of Ietting the money in without the people and influence .
It is propaganda and nothing else! Why believe such nonsense? Are you a CIA troll and part of the propaganda campaign?
China works hard to create a reputation of not interfering in the internal affairs of other states, so it is wildly insane to believe it would be involved in a burglary of an academic in a foreign country. This would be a high risk, low reward operation. More likely, some other players thought it likely to fan anti-China sentiment. Classic false flag.
There has been a sea change in the thinking of ruling circles in the West, especially the US. Once there was confidence that it had the upper hand in the ideological struggle between capitalism and Chinese socialism. The problem is that, especially since the 2008 financial crisis, people in the West are increasingly critical of the system. There are objective reasons for their discontent. Many have not recovered. Real wages are actually lower in the US. On the other hand, China has made great strides since the crisis, effectively doubling GDP and real wages, and improving social well being in general. Like any other country, China wants to win friends and influence people abroad, and now has powerful arguments in favor of its program. On the other hand, the West has nothing to crow about, and actually doesn’t want people to think too deeply about the reasons for the wretched state of affairs.
For the above reasons, the West has begun a coordinated program to hide the truth from people in the West by trotting out the same tools it used during the Cold War. We can expect new repressive legislation designed to block contacts between people of the West and China across a broad spectrum. There will be witch hunts, fear and loathing in academia, and a restriction on political contacts. This program could have some temporary effectiveness in the West, but will be seen in the rest of the world for what it is. It will not salvage the political fortunes of the West’s ruling circles.
I don’t see how delusional it could be. Europe was built from scratch also. It takes the wisdom to do something great for the long-term peace.
China may not have the logistics capability to add a province at this time. However, it’s not a bad idea to build an Asian Community with economic and political integration, and single currency in the plan.
That will give East Asia long-term peace and growth!
While we should deplore attacks on academic freedom such as Professor Anne-Marie Brady appears to be facing a New Zealand that is not completely "joined at the hip" like Australia purports to be with the US is to the advantage of New Zealand. What paranoid bullshot about China posing a threat to the South Pacific and sensible but robust response to "bleatings" from right-wing and paranoid "think-tanks" in Australia is quite appropriate. Those that fear China have more to fear from the moribund US and its allies than a China that began standing up in 1949 when Mao (it was reputed but now questioned) famously said in Tiananmen Square that the Chinese People Have Stood Up. Irrespective as to whether he said it or not the Chinese people have stood up and the world is a better place for China having stood up.
Another China scare beat-up story. A Western ally with "Chinese characteristics” sounds like the best of both worlds.