Somewhat to my surprise, a few weeks ago an invitation dropped into my email inbox.   It was from the Asia New Zealand Foundation – a (almost entirely) government-funded entity, staffed at senior levels by former MFAT people, with a mission

to build New Zealanders’ knowledge and understanding of Asia. 

These are the people who occasionally run public surveys, the results of which are marketed to bewail how little people know about Asia.  I managed to get all the latest questions right –  including which (of 4) Asian countries the Mekong river didn’t flow through –  and did surprisingly well on one of their harder quizzes.  But I still can’t name which English counties the Severn river runs through, all the countries the Rhine flows through, or all the states the Mississippi runs through or between.  I don’t feel  particularly disqualified as a result.

The invitation?

You are invited to attend a roundtable discussion being hosted at the Asia New Zealand Foundation on the conversation around foreign influence in New Zealand.

It went on

After observing the unhelpful polarity in the discussion in Australia, the Foundation has given some thought to how it could support a constructive conversation in New Zealand, namely one which:

– encourages expert voices to speak freely;
– sets a constructive tone for challenging these assessments and perspectives, without acrimony.

It was to be what they described as a “Track 1.5” event (in this world, Track 1 apparently involves official to official dialogue, and Track 2 involves non-government people talking to counterparts, but this forum would involve both).   Senior officials would attend, and speak, while as for the others

this event will involve up to 20 members of the business, media and academic community who are thinking strategically about this issue.

We were told that “the Government is keen to hear participants’  views” on issues such as

How can government and others talk about foreign interference, and its response, in a way that is constructive and sends coherent messages to a wide range of stakeholders (ie government agencies, public, business, international partners and state actors)?

I was a bit surprised to be invited.  I don’t lay claim to any particular China expertise, but I am interested in New Zealand policy and politics, and I suppose I had been a little dogged (perhaps even annoying, including to some others who were on the invite list).  So, with a little trepidation and low expectations, I accepted the invitation.  Expectations were low because in the entire document that accompanied the invitation the People’s Republic of China didn’t rate an explicit mention, and because if anything the focus seemed to designed to be about all being nice to each other.

…the purpose is to bring different voices to the table on what is a challenging but important issue for New Zealand – and to discuss how we would like to engage with each other moving forward.

The event was held under Chatham House rules.  And since they were rather sensitive on the point (even sending out a later reminder about letter and spirit), this is the explicit rule this post is written under

The Chatham House Rule will apply to this roundtable. This means that participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. There will be no note or output of the discussions.

Of the attendees, perhaps all I can say is that it was a very Wellington audience –  a description, and a flavour, rather than a criticism.

Every though everyone in the room knew that meeting wouldn’t have been held were it not for the issues around the People’s Republic of China, there was a rather desperate desire apparent to avoid singling out the PRC.   Indeed, the meeting opened with a statement about wanting to “talk as much about the risk as about any risk actor”, and that together with a statement near the end about not talking about the “who” but the “what” tended to bracket the discussion.

We heard that the Prime Minister had said publicly that New Zealand had experienced Russian cyber-attacks, we heard reference to Russian use of chemical weapons, about “fake news” and RT, we heard about the US pulling out of the Paris climate agreement (which, last time I looked, was their perfect right) and about questionable new US tariffs.   On the other hand, National MP Jian Yang –  former member of the Chinese intelligence system, Communist Party member, someone who admits that he misrepresented his past to New Zealand immigration authorities because Beijing told him to –  would have been mentioned not at all, except that I mentioned him (to note the omission) late in the discussion.   Trade ties –  and the heightened exposure some New Zealand entities have created for themselves, knowing the risks, and in turn putting increased pressure on the New Zealand government to keep quiet –  also barely got a mention.   Specifics quickly get awkward and personal.

Speakers were keen to convince us that officialdom was right up with the play (the issue being “owned” overall by DPMC), and working hand in hand with our Five Eyes partners,  They weren’t, we were told, “naive and unprepared” but rather actively engaged in “detecting and countering interference” –  apparently some overseas partners are even envious of some of the telecommunications legislation implemented here a few years ago (an observation that should probably leave New Zealanders a bit nervous).  Any suggestion of a threat to our membership of Five Eyes is, we were told, “spurious”.  I presume that means “false”.

I guess I came away with the impression that officials think they are more or less on top of the outright illegal stuff.   One hopes they are correct.

My own concerns tend to be with stuff that is legal, or just overlooked.   And where political cravenness, fear, and good dose of pursuing short-term opportunities as if oblivious to the character of those being dealt with, seem to matter as much as any active direct PRC intervention here.  Stuff like, for example, the way our major political party presidents laud Xi Jinping or the CCP, or the way a major party campaigns with a Xi Jinping slogan, or the refusal of anyone prominent to ever say anything critical of the PRC in public.  Or the willingness of our public universities to take PRC funding for culture/language learning, with PRC controls over the sort of people allowed to teach (Falun Gong adherents need not apply, nor those pro-democracy, those favouring respect for Taiwan’s independence etc).  Or the way our trans-Tasman school of government is in partnership with the Chinese Communist Party.  Last week our political leaders went back and forward over what to say about the US border/illegal immigrant issues.  The political editor of our largest paper called for our leaders to show we had an “independent foreign policy”.  I’d have thought the treatment of the PRC was more of a test of that one.   South China Sea anyone?  Taiwan –  a prosperous democratic state increasingly menaced by a power we’ve signed up with in some “fusion of civilisations” vision –  anyone?

Or one might look for any sense of real concern for our own ethnic Chinese citizens –  especially those who despise the regime, or have few/no modern ties to the PRC –  whose media, whose cultural associations etc are increasingly in the thrall of regime-friendly United Front entities.  Or concern for the New Zealanders of Chinese ethnicity who face threats to families back in the PRC if they do make a stand, or speak out, on anything.

I’m not suggesting there were no direct references to the PRC at the roundtable, but it seemed awkward, rather than any sort of open or really honest conversation.  I’m sure everyone there knows the character of the PRC regime –  at home, abroad, and here.  But…it was clearly awkward to talk about, and no one wanted to name the PRC as one of the most awful regimes now on the planet –  between its external expansionism, defiance of international law, attempts to rewrite history, attempts to use diasporas to serve its purposes, domestic concentration camps (much of the province of Xinjiang), political and religious repression, organ harvesting, and so on, the Nazi Germany equivalent of our day.  If you won’t name the character of the bad actor, you are unlikely to be serious about resisting or responding.   It is hardly as if the goals of the PRC/CCP, including through the United Front organisations in (various) countries like ours, is any great secret.

Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised in a couple of areas.  There was clear unease, from people in a good position to know, about the role of large donations to political parties from ethnic minority populations –  often from cultures without the political tradition here (in theory, if not always observed in practice in recent decades) that donations are not about purchasing influence.  One person observed that we had very much the same issues Australia was grappling with (although our formal laws are tighter than the Australian ones).  Of ethnic Chinese donations in particular, the description “truckloads” was used, with a sense that the situation is almost “inherently unhealthy”.   With membership numbers in political parties dropping, and political campaigning getting no less expensive, this ethnic contribution (and associated influence seeking) issue led several participants to note that they had come round to favouring serious consideration of state funding of political parties.   I remain sceptical of that approach –  especially the risk of locking in the position of the established parties, or locking out parties the establishment doesn’t like – but it was sobering to hear.

There was also unease about the suborning of former politicians (jobs after politics), and the suggestion of a need for stand-down periods.  And there was something of a call for more open government engagement on these issues (not, obviously, direct intelligence matters).  One person contrasted the speech a few months ago by the Australian head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, highlighting some of the issues and risks, and the near-silence by our own senior officials and ministers.    But here I suspect there was a bifurcation between those who felt the government should be on the front foot playing down the issues, and those who felt it should be more open in recognising them and engaging in debate with New Zealanders about how best we should respond.  Of the taxpayer-funded China Council’s efforts in this area –  attempting to minimise or trivialise the issue – one participant observed that they had been “unsophisticated and unhelpful”.

I guess my sense was that few of the people at the roundtable were at all comfortable participating in wider public or political debate: many were or are bureaucrats, not accustomed to visibility or audibility.  And many of the non-government people had business or similar interests that would make speaking out difficult, and potentially threatening to finances and professional opportunities.  There wasn’t even much sign of robust debate around the table of the meeting itself –  occasional awkward observations typically being left to stand, with no response or debate (although this may partly have reflected time constraints).

Many seemed to feel a real distaste for the nature of the debate in Australia over the last 12 to 18 months.   One discussant pushed back, arguing that what was needed was a robust public debate, not just involving subject experts, but citizens, and that –  moreover –  some heat was often an inseparable part of shedding light, and that arguably the Australians had done the debate better.  I’m in that latter camp.   On the other side, someone plaintively quoted one of the participants in the Australian debate as accepting that he had occasionally overdone things on Twitter, but surely that is almost in the nature of the medium?   Civility is a considerable virtue, but it isn’t the only one, and sometimes civility and politeness can be a cover for avoiding really confronting issues.  It is fine to quote –  as someone did – the old line about playing the ball not the man, but people are the actors here:

• Jian Yang, personally, is in our Parliament, is a former member of Chinese military intelligence, did misrepresent his past, is closely associated with the PRC Embassy,
• Bill English and Simon Bridges (on the one hand) and Jacinda Ardern and Winston Peters on the other sit silently by,
• Chris Finlayson did openly attack Anne-Marie Brady (none of whose significant claims has been overturned or substantively challenged) as some sort of racist xenophobe,
• Raymond Huo is closely associated with United Front bodies, and did adopt a Xi Jinping slogan for Labour’s campaign among the Chinese community,
• Peter Goodfellow and Nigel Haworth do laud and magnify Xi Jinping and the PRC,
• successive foreign and trade ministers make up stuff about our economic reliance on the PRC, and keep very very quiet whenever any awkward issues arise.

No one makes these people do any of these things. They choose to.   There are explanations perhaps, but not justifications.

In the end, I appreciated the invitation to the roundtable, and I did learn a few things.  But it didn’t leave me really any more confident than I had gone in that the establishment was at all keen or willing to have New Zealand stand up and do things differently, not just safeguarding our formal institutions (which probably aren’t that threatened), but with some self-respect, standing up for the sort of the values countries like our own have long stood for, and which the PRC/CCP is –  in many cases –  the antithesis.   Roosevelt’s four freedoms, and things like that –  on all of which the PRC either falls well short, or seems to simply regard them as “not applicable here”.

Then again, the real issue isn’t advisers per se, but the reluctance of successive elected governments to do or say anything that might prove awkward with Beijing.  Implied threats  – to individuals or to the economy (economic coercion and the like) –  are interference, even if there is nothing direct for intelligence agencies and the like to pick up on, and even if –  as in the case of economic coercion –  politicians are often excessively fearful.  Political donations may be part of that story, I don’t think they are anything like the entire picture.  And yet none of that was discussed.

 

 

A week or so ago I wrote here about some comments made by Jason Young, the (then) acting director of the Contemporary China Research Centre, which is based at Victoria University.   Dr Young’s contribution appeared to be to claim that any New Zealand debate around the People’s Republic of China, including its activities in New Zealand, was some sort of “fact-free zone” –  while ignoring all the facts in plain sight –  and to lament the absence of better quality debate, while not himself seeking to add much to it.  It seemed like an attempt to play distraction.

As I noted in that post

The chair of CCRC is Tony Browne, former New Zealand Ambassador to the PRC, who also just happens to be the chair of the PRC-funded (and controlled) Confucius Institute at Victoria University (CCRC and the Confucius Institute seem to share an administrator as well).  The CCRC itself seeems to work hand-in-glove with MFAT……and its advisory board is largely made up of public servants (MFAT, MBIE, Treasury, NZTE, Asia New Zealand Foundation) plus the chair of Education NZ and the former chair of the New Zealand China Trade Association.

It didn’t seem like an organisation that was ever likely to say anything critical…..and in the unlikely event it did, there would be repercussions all round.

A day or two later, Stuff had an article on the Contemporary China Research Centre, prompted (it appeared) by some mix of those Jason Young comments I’d been writing about and the announcement that Jason Young had been confirmed as director of the CCRC.  Young was, as one might expect, championing his institution

Young said the debate around the role China played in New Zealand, and the wider region, was more complex than had been discussed in the recent media reports and academic articles in New Zealand.

“Sensationalist claims about extensive Chinese influence in New Zealand highlight the importance of the knowledge and understanding the Victoria University of Wellington-led New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre (NZCCRC) brings to public debate,” he said.

“It is crucially important we have a New Zealand institute that can think about New Zealand interests and New Zealand needs and New Zealand values and New Zealand problems.

“Obviously, we can draw on what American, Australian and other scholars are saying, but there are unique elements that need to be addressed from a New Zealand perspective.”

The new head said the centre’s advantage was its independence, and ability to speak with “a New Zealand voice”.

At that point I began wondering how he could say all this with a straight face.   He doesn’t appear to have been misquoted or misrepresented either (I kept an eye on his Twitter feed and on the CCRC website and there were no corrections or clarifications) –  what Stuff quote him as saying appears to be what he believes.  Remarkable what one can come to believe when one’s job (and recent promotion) requires it.

To their credit, Stuff picked up the point about the close ties betwen the PRC-funded Confucius Institute at Victoria and the CCRC.

The centre shares a location, chairman, and administrator with the Confucius Institute, which is funded by the Chinese Government.

Chair Tony Browne told Stuff the institutes operated independently.

Rebecca Needham, director of the Confucius Institute at Victoria, said she wouldn’t stand for any political influence from the Chinese Government.

So let’s try to unpick this a bit, including the web that ties together MFAT, the CCRC, Tony Browne personally, the Confucius Institute and so on, in ways that make it exceedingly unlikely that the CCRC will ever be able to (or interested in) providing detached critical commentary on any threat posed by the PRC.   When he speaks, Dr Young is likely to be expressing his real views, but he’ll have been chosen for the role in no small part based on the inoffensiveness (to his patrons and sponsors, and their funders –  in Beijing and the Beehive) of his views.

Take the connection between the CCRC and the Victoria University Confucius Institute.  It isn’t just that they share a:

• location
• administrator
• chairman

which seems quite a close tie, all things considered.  I went back the other day and read the Annual Reports of the CCRC, and this is what I found.

From the first report in 2009

12. Confucius Institutes. The Centre has supported and facilitated the working on the establishment of a Confucius Institute at Victoria University. Canterbury University is also establishing a Confucius Institute in Christchurch.

and from the 2010 Annual Report

That was Xi Jinping himself.

The two bodies seem to operate hand-in-glove.  It is hardly likely that the NZ CCRC –  chaired by Tony Browne –  will ever be publishing critical material on the PRC, which would make difficulty for, say, the Confucius Institute, chaired by the same Tony Browne, and funded by the government of the PRC to propadandise for the regime in our universities and schools.   Presumably not even Dr Young or Mr Browne would pretend that the CCRC could ever be a source of critical scrutiny of the Confucius Institute programme itself  (which has raised serious concerns in other countries, to the extent of a number of universities discontinuing the programme).    NZ CCRC and the PRC are partners in all but name (in addition to the various formal partnership arrangements CCRC has with PRC universities and government agencies).

What else do we learn about the CCRC?    From the 2017 Annual Report

The Centre has continued the successful partnership with the China Capable Public Sector Programme, managed and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for officials from across the public sector.

The Masterclass is an intensive five-day course on China designed and taught by the China Centre. It is exclusively for public sector workers and is delivered through a series of introductory talks and roundtables, followed by scenario-based activities. This year the Centre has put on two Masterclass events with excellent feedback.

It looks like a worthwhile programme, but it is also a significant business arrangement and financial arrangement with MFAT, who will be most unlikely to welcome anything that rocks the boat (and I’ve heard that MFAT/CCRC have been quite selective in which perspectives get presented at these courses). I don’t suppose CCRC would be running MFAT’s course for them had they ever openly made life difficult by casting doubt on the “never ever upset Beijing” line that seems to guide officials and ministers.

From that same annual report we also find

The Centre’s Executive Chair [Tony Browne] has continued in his role as a member of the Executive Board of the New Zealand China Council. He has also been appointed to the International Steering Committee of the Silk Road NGO Cooperation Network.

The China Council?  The (largely taxpayer-funded) advocacy group, on the board of which sit the chief executives of MFAT and NZTE, to champion the relationship with the PRC, apparently by never ever saying anything critical, and pooh-poohing anyone else who does.

As for the Silk Road NGO Cooperation Network, it appears to be another PRC government facilitated body.

Tony Browne, the former New Zealand Ambassador to Beijing, must be a busy man.   I remembered that I had met him once.   Among his many hats is that he is co-director of the China Advanced Leadership Programme, run by the Australia-New Zealand School of Government (itself a partnership involving various Australian universities and Victoria University).

The China Advanced Leadership Program (CALP) is an annual three-week program for Chinese officials, delivered in Australia and New Zealand. The aim of the program is to develop productive relationships between high level public officials of Australia, New Zealand and China.  The program has been operational since 2011 and is delivered across multiple Australian and New Zealand cities.  The program is made possible due to ANZSOG’s relationship with the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party.   

It must be a quite a revenue-generator for the universities concerned.

Who attends

Who are our participants?

Senior and emerging Chinese public officials from central and provincial governments – Up 25 senior officials in China are carefully selected by ANZSOG’s program partner, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The Organization Department occupies a unique role in the hierarchy of the Chinese government – it oversees appointments of all key positions within the administration. Previous delegations have included Vice-Ministers from the Central Government, Party Secretaries, City Mayors, and Directors-General.

All, quite explicitly, CCP members.

Who speaks?

Contributors

ANZSOG brings together the highest levels within government, business and academia in Australia. Previous contributors have included Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers of Australia, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Governor-General of Australia, state Premiers, the Treasurer, former Prime Ministers, Chief Justice of Australia and other top political leadership, CEOs of federal and state government agencies, business and industry bodies. The program provides a world-class learning opportunity in Australia and New Zealand for senior Chinese officials. Past contributors include The Hon Susan Kiefel AC, The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, The Hon John Howard OM, AC, The Hon Bob Carr and The Hon John Brumby AO.

And me.  I don’t think Graeme Wheeler ever quite got the message about the PRC.  The organisers were keen to have him speak, and twice the job got passed down the line, ending up with me.    The day I last spoke, they’d also had John Key, Gerry Brownlee, Phil Goff and Iain Rennie speaking.  It is all taken very seriously.   (If anyone is interested, I got the Reserve Bank to release the text of my 2014 address, on the evolution of economic management in New Zealand over almost 200 years.  I think I avoided upsetting the visitors or being nauseatingly obsequious.)

You might suppose that being a partnership between numerous Australian universities and Victoria University, ANZSOG wasn’t of much moment in New Zealand.  In fact, the state and national governments are members.  And of the Board, three are New Zealanders –  in the chair is Peter Hughes, the current State Services Commissioner.  And what of ANZSOG’s ties with the PRC?  It isn’t just a commercial relationship involved in running that course.    Instead, ANZSOG lists as “affiliate partners” a small number of agencies including

Affiliate partners

• China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP)
• The Central Organization Department of the Communist Party of China, and
• The Chinese Academy of Governance

It is all terribly cosy.  The presence of the Chinese Communist Party speaks for itself.  But CELAP describes itself as

China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP), a Shanghai-based national institution, is funded by the central government and supervised by Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

Does it amount to much?  Probably not, but it is hardly a sign of governments ready to take a detached, and perhaps critical, approach to the PRC, or to foster such free and frank perspectives among their own public servants.

Reverting to the Victoria University Confucius Institute, the director Rebecca Needham was quoted in that Stuff article as saying that

she wouldn’t stand for any political influence from the Chinese Government.

And no doubt that is quite true as written.  But presumably she doesn’t count as “political influence” the sorts of prohibitions in these arrangements that, for example, screen the Mandarin language teaching assistants for their own political and religious soundness (Falun Gong need not apply)?   Perhaps, since she is a skilled and experienced bureaucrat, the “Chinese government” in that quote does not include the entity in the PRC that funds the Confucius Institute?  The Office of Chinese Language Council International (colloquially Hanban) apparently describes itself as a “non-government and non-profit organization”, but is chaired by a PRC vice-premier and reports to the PRC Ministry of Education.

Apparently, the directors of these Confucius Institutes are typically appointed by the host institution, not by anyone in the PRC.    And yet, when your institution is launched, here in Wellington, by Xi Jinping, when your institution depends on ongoing PRC funding, lets not be cute and suppose that anyone slightly risky –  or ever needing “political interference” to do the “right thing” –  would be appointed to the job.

And what of Ms Needham?  When I looked her up, it turns out that she was a long serving MFAT staffer, including a stint as New Zealand Consul-General in Guangzhou, leaving MFAT only a year or so ago.   Remarkably, despite serving now as the director of a PRC funded entity, devoted to the advancement of PRC interests in New Zealand, she is listed on the MFAT website as part of the “China Capable Public Sector Community of Practice”   which

brings together a core group of China experts from across the public sector who provide input and advice to the CCPS programme and connect people to share knowledge, learn, and collaborate around common concerns, problems, opportunities, or interests regarding New Zealand’s engagement with China.

The rest of the list is made up exclusively of current New Zealand public servants.   It looks like a good initiative, and the role of this “community of practice” is described as

The role of the CoP is to:

• Act as a trusted advisor to agencies to inform strategic thinking, broad policy direction, and operational issues on China matters when invited
• Provide advice and guidance on the New Zealand perspective and China context in the development and delivery of CCPS curriculum initiatives
• Share knowledge and experience through participation in CCPS curriculum activities
• Foster networks with China experts across the sector
• Model a collaborative approach to develop a cross-sector mindset on China capability.

But Rebecca Needham works for an organisation funded by the government of the PRC, devoted to the advancement of various PRC interests in New Zealand.  Did MFAT not even recognise the potential for conflict, for differences of interest or views?

And, of course, Needham shares a location, an administrator, and a chairman with the Contemporary China Research Centre.

To repeat, no one should look to the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre for any independent perspectives on the PRC, or its relationship with New Zealand.   That will, presumably, serve the government and MFAT (and perhaps Beijing) well, but sadly it will also mean that even when the CCRC does put out good material, or host worthwhile workshops, that might offer some (fair) perspectives on Beijing, its contribution will be tainted by the knowledge that it would be most unlikely to ever offer anything on the other side.  The CCRC is neutralised by construction, and by appointments (chair, director, board members), by business dealings, and by association.

And thus we’ve heard nothing from it on, say, the presence in our Parliament of a former member of the Chinese military intelligence establishment, former (?) member of the CCP, close associate of the PRC Embassy and various United Front organisations, who misrepresented his past to voters, who acknowledges that he misrepresented his past to New Zealand immigration authorities at the encouragement of his former PRC masters.   None of those facts is in dispute.  And the silence, or attempts to play distraction, by the CCRC, the China Council, and so on is deafening, and sadly telling.

There has been plenty of criticism of the Labour-New Zealand First government for their failure to act meaningfully in support of the United Kingdom and other traditional western friends and allies, responding to the poisoning in Salisbury of the Skripals.  I’d agree with the critics.  Even Ireland –  not in NATO, Five Eyes or other military/intelligence alliances –  expelled a Russian diplomat in response.  But not New Zealand.   Add in that refusal to act to the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ attempts to minimise Russian responsibility for the downing of MH17 or to suggest Russian hadn’t been attempting to meddle in the US 2016 election, and it must be increasingly difficult for our friends and allies to take us seriously as either.

I don’t suppose Russia is much direct threat to New Zealand –  though cyber threats aren’t restricted by physical proximity.  But that shouldn’t really be the point.     Countries simply shouldn’t be able to get away with killing (or in this case, so far, attempting to kill) people going about their lawful business in other countries without some response.     And the provision of support in times of need is what friends and allies do –  in fact, it is one of test of friendship.  Kicking out diplomats (for a few months) is a feeble enough response, longer on symbolism than substance.  But the New Zealand government wasn’t even willing to get onside with the symbolic response.    Instead, we find our ourselves in the company of Greece – a country with very close historical and contemporary political, cultural and religious ties to Russia.

With enough determination even a country –  Russia – whose real GDP (in purchasing power parity terms) is only a third of that of just the biggest four west European economies combined, and about 20 per cent of that of just the United States, can wreak a lot of havoc if it chooses, especially to its smaller and weaker neighbours.  But it is still a country in relative decline.

So there is Russia and then there is the People’s Republic of China.  I’ve recently been reading the book Henry Kissinger wrote a few years about China, including US relations with the People’s Republic in recent decades.  It was a useful reminder that when the PRC and the United States opened up to each other almost 50 years ago now it was, from both sides’ perspectives, substantially about dealing with the greatest geopolitical threat of that era –  the Soviet Union, which had armies (and nukes) perceived to threaten western Europe, and armies massed on the northern borders of China.

Here was the relative economic capacities (real GDP in purchasing power parity terms) of the three countries in 1970.

Of course, the PRC had enormously more people than either of the other countries (and, as Kissinger reports, Mao had often talked of China’s ability to absorb losses of a few hundred million people in a nuclear attack).   Add in, on one side, the rest of NATO and, on the other side, the rest of the Warsaw Pact, and the western economic capacity was far far greater than that of the Soviet Union.    But states like the USSR could still pose a threat, by devoting a far larger proportion of their resources to military purposes.  Pre-war Germany was, after all, materially poorer than Britain and France (and respective empires) combined, and even a bit poorer than just the Soviet Union.  Real GDP in Japan in 1940 was about a quarter of that of the United States.  Japan and Germany lost –  they were both poorer, and had fewer people than the countries they took on – but it tooks years and enormous sacrifices to beat them.

What of the situation now?   This chart shows the ratio of PRC to US total real GDP, again in purchasing power parity terms, from 1980 (when the IMF database starts) through to forecasts for 2022.

In PPP terms, the size of the PRC economy exceeded that of the US a few years ago.  Even if you think China might have some rocky times ahead –  the overhang of all the internal debt – it seems highly unlikely that the PRC economy will ever again be as small as that of the US.  On IMF numbers, in 2022 total GDP in China will be roughly equal to that of the US, Japan and Germany combined.   Of course, material living standards in the PRC are much lower than those in the United States, but on the IMF projections by 2022 real GDP per capita in China is forecast to be about a third of that in the United States.  Soviet Union real GDP per capita in 1970 was about a third of that in the United States then.

There is plenty of talk from the PRC of its “peaceful rise” or “peaceful development”.  But even if we set Tibet to one side, this is the regime that has fought three aggressive wars (Korea, India, and Vietnam), which has used military action to seize islands and reefs in the South China Seas and which to this day has never ruled out the military conquest of its neighbour –  the now prosperous democracy of Taiwan.   If anything, the rhetoric around Taiwan has only been stepped up in recent years.  In defiance of international law, the regime has created artificial islands from rocks and reefs, and continues to expand its military capability on those “islands”.  The regime menaces Japan around the Senkaku Islands, and only last year there was the Doklam standoff with India.  If you are worried about Russian support for separatists in eastern Ukraine –  as most rightly are –  there is plenty enough to match it in the aggression of the PRC.  The PRC bullies and bribes regional goverments to gets its way (eg here) . And yet rarely a word is openly uttered by most Western governments, including our own.

And if Russia’s latest offence – egregious enough –  was attempting to murder a couple more Russian citizens in Britain, what of the People’s Republic?  There was a fascinating, and pretty disconcerting, article in Foreign Policy only a few days ago headed “The Disappeared” about the (alleged) activities of the PRC regime in kidnapping or otherwise coercing people who have left China –  who may even be citizens of other countries (and the PRC doesn’t legally recognise dual citizenship) –  to return.    There is even a suggestion, from a former Chinese diplomat who defected to the West a decade or so ago, that such activities may have occurred in New Zealand.

One of the first cases to spark debate dates to 2005, when Chen Yonglin, a Chinese diplomat who had defected to Australia, accused security forces of having drugged and kidnapped Lan Meng, the son of a former deputy mayor of Xiamen, five years earlier. Lan was allegedly drugged by Chinese security forces and transported from Australia back to China on a state-owned shipping vessel.

Chen, who was assigned to China’s consulate in Sydney at the time of his defection, claimed that Chinese officials abducted Lan in order to force his father, Lan Fu, to return to China from Australia to face criminal corruption charges. (Lan Fu returned to China in 2000 and is now serving a lifelong prison sentence.) Australian officials have contested Chen’s claims, and the alleged victim, like numerous others, apparently denied the story to Australian federal police.

But Chen remains adamant. Reached by phone in Australia, he confirms his account of Lan Meng’s rendition, citing numerous conversations about such abductions with Chinese military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials during his tenure at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He says while in office, he heard of at least one other Chinese-sponsored seizure in Australia, as well as one in New Zealand. Chinese operatives also performed similar kidnappings in Vanuatu and Fiji during this period, he says. (Chen says the New Zealand case involved a woman named Xie Li, who was kidnapped in Auckland in 2004 and returned to China via a state-owned shipping vessel.)

It would be interesting to know what the New Zealand government’s position is on this claim.  (Probably wishing it had never been aired, lest they be put on the spot.)

Along similar lines is a new article in The Economist, which cites that way the PRC regime uses threats to families back in China to coerce silence or return from dissidents abroad –  again, often citizens of other countries.   It reminds us again of the case of the Swedish citizen Gui Minhai

In countries with closer ties to China, agents have occasionally dispensed with such pressures in favour of more resolute action. Wang Dan, a leader of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, says that he and other exiled dissidents have long avoided Cambodia, Thailand and other countries seen as friendly to China for fear of being detained by Chinese agents. The case of Gui Minhai, a Swede who had renounced his Chinese citizenship, suggests they are right to do so. He was kidnapped by Chinese officials in Thailand in 2015 and taken to the mainland. In a seemingly forced confession broadcast on Chinese television, he admitted to a driving offence over a decade earlier.

It all seems as least as lawless as Russia, quite probably more so.   And yet in some parody of good government and the rule of law, a PRC senior official now heads Interpol.

We could go on, and focus on the PRC theft and dubious acquisition of all manner of intellectual property.

Or, then again, we could simply look at New Zealand itself, where the PRC is generally accepted as having exerted its energies here –  among New Zealand citizens of Chinese descent –  to get effective control of almost all the Chinese language media here (and something similar in Australia), and many religous and cultural bodies patronised by New Zealanders of Chinese descent.  Or we could look at the Labour Party MP who was adopting slogans from Xi Jinping for Labour’s campaign among the New Zealand Chinese community.   Or the National Pary MP, formerly a member of PRC military intelligence establishment, member of the Chinese Communist Party (which controls the PRC government), who closely associates with the PRC Embassy in New Zealand, and who has never once in his political career been heard to utter a criticism of the regime’s activities –  whether here, abroad, or back in China itself.    Who admits he lied about his background –  at the direction of the PRC regime –  when he came to New Zealand.  Perhaps the regime exercises leverage over him by threats to his family back in China.  If so, he clearly doesn’t have the capacity to operate as a member of Parliament in the interests of all New Zealanders. And if not, why can’t he bring himself to utter a word of criticism of such a noxious regime? (More generally, why won’t he front the English language media –  the bits not until PRC/CCP control –  at all?).

I wrote a post a few months ago, when the Jian Yang affair first broke about how it would have been inconceivable to have had a former KGB/GRU official in our Parliament in the 1970s –  at very least, not one who wasn’t a trenchant critic of the USSR he had left behind.  But I could bring that up to date.  Imagine if there was a former GRU officer in the House of Commons, or our Parliament, today.  It is inconceivable.  And yet that is the equivalent situation we face with Jian Yang as a New Zealand MP today –  something that no politicial figure will express any serious concern about, or that the National Party will do anything about.

Oh, and one of the responses to renewed Russian aggression in recent years has been to put on ice negotiations for a preferential trade agreement with Russia.  That suspension seemed prudent and appropriate –  both in managing relations with our friends in Europe, and on the substance of the case and the nature of the regime.  And yet our government –  and its predecessor –  seem quite unbothered about a preferential trade agreement with the PRC, or –  more pointedly –  about continuing to negotiate right now for an upgrade to that agreement.

I’m disappointed that our government has refused to join the Western (symbolic) response to the apparent near-certainty of Russian government responsibility for the Salisbury attack.  But in the scheme of things, the complaisance, the silence, the desire to do deals with the PRC –  the refusal to confront even a situation like the Jian Yang one domestically – concerns me, and should concern New Zealanders, considerably more.  If there is a serious double-standard at work in those who criticise the government about the Russia response, while never raising even a murmur about the PRC, perhaps there isn’t one in the government at all.  They seem simply supine all round.

There was a column in The Australian the other day from a former deputy head of the Australian Department of Defence (and now head of a think-tank) in which he observed

Sadly, New Zealand’s failure to join other democracies in expelling Russian spies and Wellington’s kowtowing to Beijing shows that this is one old ally that already has given up the fight for Western values.

One hopes that is a premature conclusion, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence for the other side at present.  And it isn’t just a matter of values, or friendship, but of interests.  If the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical threat in 1970, it is hard not to conclude that the People’s Republic of China –  bigger and relatively richer than the Soviet Union ever was –  holds that title today.  Toadying served no country’s long-term interests in the 1930s, or during the Cold War.  It doesn’t today either.  Selling your birthright for a mess of potage wasn’t a great strategy for Esau, nor should it be for any one else with a modicum of self-respect.