I’d been planning to write a post today about the near-complete cone of silence that seems to have descended over elite New Zealand around the Jian Yang scandal.   That a former member of the Chinese intelligence service, former (perhaps present, if passive) member of the Chinese Communist Party, still in the very good graces of the Chinese authorities –  never, for example, having denounced the oppressive expansionist regime he served –  sits in New Zealand’s Parliament, nominated to again win a seat in Parliament on Saturday, is both astonishing –  at least to those like me who haven’t been close observers of such things –  and reprehensible.   That it seems not to bother anyone in, or close to, power (at least enough to do or say anything) is perhaps even more alarming.  There was a wave of stories in the first 24 hours after the Financial Times/Newsroom stories broke, and then……well, almost nothing.

There has been a lame excuse offered up:  Jane Bowron in the Dominion-Post noted that it was election time and there is lots else to write about.  And actually I more or less buy the line that there aren’t the journalistic resources to do much new digging right now.  But (a) it is election week, when we make choices about the sort of people and parties we want governing us, and (b) how hard can it be to ask, and keep on asking, political leaders of whatever stripe about this story, on the basis of what has already been published, and on what Yang has already acknowledged (years later)?     Report, again and again if necessary, that a key political figure refused to comment, but don’t simply ignore the story.

But then Newsroom this morning had another important story, putting the Yang story in the much wider context of the systematic efforts of the Chinese authorities (state and party), and drawing on a new paper by University of Canterbury politics professor, and expert on China and its ambitions, Anne-Marie Brady.   Her paper Magic Weapons: China’s political influence activities under Xi Jinping  was presented at a conference in the United States a few days ago: the conference title “The corrosion of democracy under China’s global influence”.    What makes it so compelling is that it is a detailed case study of China’s efforts in New Zealand.  It isn’t heavy analysis, but simply nugget after nugget that builds a deeply disquieting picture, and perhaps makes disturbing sense of the cone of silence around Jian Yang.   Every thinking New Zealand should read Brady’s paper.

As she notes early in the paper

New Zealand’s relationship with China is of interest, because the Chinese government regards New Zealand as an exemplar of how it would like its relations to be with other states. In 2013, China’s New Zealand ambassador described the two countries’ relationship as “a model to other Western countries”.

With, one hopes, a degree of hyperbole, she goes on to note (quoting an anonymous source)

And after Premier Li Keqiang visited New Zealand in 2017, a Chinese diplomat favourably compared New Zealand-China relations to the level of closeness China had with Albania in the early 1960s.

She goes on to outline the huge effort China puts in to attempting to manage the Chinese diaspora, whether in New Zealand or other countries.

After more than 30 years of this work, there are few overseas Chinese associations able to completely evade “guidance”—other than those affiliated with the religious group Falungong, Taiwan independence, pro-independence Tibetans and Uighurs, independent Chinese religious groups outside party-state controlled religions, and the democracy movement—and even these are subject to being infiltrated by informers and a target for united front work.

She records that these efforts have greatly intensified under Xi Jinping – as internal repression in China has as well.

Even more than his predecessors, Xi Jinping has led a massive expansion of efforts to shape foreign public opinion in order to influence the decision-making of foreign governments and societies

This includes seeking, largely successfully, to gain effective control over Chinese-language media (with exceptions as above) and encouraging political involvement of overseas Chinese.

This policy encourages overseas Chinese who are acceptable to the PRC government to become involved in politics in their host countries as candidates who, if elected, will be able to act to promote China’s interests abroad; and encourages China’s allies to build relations with non-Chinese pro-CCP government foreign political figures, to offer donations to foreign political parties, and to mobilize public opinion via Chinese language social media; so as to promote the PRC’s economic and political agenda abroad.42 Of course it is completely normal and to be encouraged that the ethnic Chinese communities in each country seek political representation; however this initiative is separate from that spontaneous and natural development.

And neutralising, or even coopting,  members of local media and academe.

Coopt foreign academics, entrepreneurs, and politicians to promote China’s perspective in the media and academia. Build up positive relations with susceptible individuals via shows of generous political hospitality in China. The explosion in numbers of all-expenses-paid quasi-scholarly and quasi-official conferences in China (and some which are held overseas) is a notable feature of the Xi era, on an unprecedented scale.

As she notes, New Zealand hasn’t been immune to that strand of influence.   In part we do it to ourselves –  there are, for example, the New Zealand government sponsored New Zealand China Council media awards.  Or sponsored trips for selected journalists to China, paid for the New Zealand China Friendship Society (didn’t the Soviets used to sponsor such bodies?).    It becomes harder to ask awkward questions when awards and sponsored travel opportunities might depend on not doing so.   I don’t suppose the New Zealand China Council  –  chaired by Don McKinnon, including the chief executive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade – would be at all pleased by open scrutiny and debate about Jian Yang’s background, his ongoing relationship with the Chinese authorities, and his presence in our Parliament.   It might –  no doubt would –  upset China, not a country known for its tolerance of robust scrutiny and challenge.  These days, one has to wonder whether we still are, at least when it comes to China.

One of the most interesting bits of the paper is Brady’s discussion of why New Zealand interests China.    Here is some of her text

But New Zealand is of interest to China for a number of significant reasons. First of all, the New Zealand government is responsible for the defence and foreign affairs of three other territories in the South Pacific: the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau—which potentially means four votes for China at international organisations. New Zealand is a claimant state in Antarctica and one of the closest access points there; China has a long-term strategic agenda in Antarctica that will require the cooperation of established Antarctic states such as New Zealand. New Zealand has cheap arable land and a sparse population and China is seeking to access foreign arable land to improve its food safety.  ……

New Zealand is also a member of the UKUSA intelligence agreement, the Five Power Defense Arrangement, and the unofficial ABCA grouping of militaries, as well as a NATO partner state. 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. New Zealand’s ever closer economic, political, and military relationship with China, is seen by Beijing as an exemplar to Australia, the small island nations in the South Pacific, as well as more broadly, other Western states.

Not all of it is wholly compelling –  Tokelau isn’t independent, and the Cooks and Niue aren’t members of many international organisations. But the overall story makes a lot of sense.   If you wonder about the Antarctic bit, Brady is an expert on China’s Antarctic policies and aspirations.

On the other hand, you have to wonder quite why New Zealand governments should pay so much court to China.  Exports from New Zealand firms to China account directly for only about 5 per cent of our GDP (exports from Canadian firms to the US are, by contrast, 23 per cent of Canada’s GDP). And many of those exports –  notably dairy products and lamb –  are for relatively homogeneous products that would end up sold elsewhere, perhaps at lower prices, if somehow China restricted the ability of New Zealand firms to export.    There is, of course, the Chinese student market –  almost half the total student visas issued last year were to Chinese students –  but, as is now well-recognised the export education industry is a pretty troubled and distorted one, often as much about immigration aspirations as about the quality of the education product on offer.   So university vice-chancellors, and their colleagues in lesser institutions, might have a strong private interest in not upsetting China but it isn’t obvious that the citizenry of New Zealand share that interest, when it comes to defending our values and our system.

Brady argues that the emphasis on the China relationship appears to have greatly intensified under the current government

the current prominence afforded the China relationship has accelerated dramatically under the government that won the election in 2008, the New Zealand National Party. The National Party government (2008-), follows two main principles on China: 1. The “no surprises” policy,72 which appears to mean avoiding the New Zealand government or its officials or anyone affiliated with government activities saying or doing anything that might offend the PRC government; and 2. a long-standing emphasis on “getting the political relationship right”, which under this National government has come to mean developing extensive and intimate political links with CCP local and national leaders and their representatives and affiliated actors in New Zealand.

She provides a concrete example of this desperate desire not to offend.

This cautiousness to not rock the boat over New Zealand-China relations lay behind New Zealand’s reluctance to join the USA and Australia to criticize China’s military base building activities in the South China Sea. Following massive pressure from Australia and the US, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (2008-2016) and other ministers made a series of muted remarks in 2015 and 2016, but it was far from what  New Zealand’s allies had hoped for, who have frequently accused the National government of being soft on China. The New Zealand National government’s reticence to speak out on this issue, despite the fact New Zealand has the fourth largest maritime territory in the world and relies on respect for international norms for the protection of its rights, is one telling example of the effectiveness of China’s soft power efforts in New Zealand in recent years.

Brady highlights concerns around a number of local Chinese politicians –  not just Yang, but also Labour’s Raymond Huo and former ACT MP (and until recently, deputy leader) Kenneth Wang.   You can read some of those concerns, and apparently serious questions, for yourself.

Through much of the rest of her article, Brady writes in some detail about the various webs of connection that help create an economic interest among many leading New Zealand figures in not rocking the boat.  As I’ve noted previously, the Chinese banks operating in New Zealand have four former senior National Party figures on their various boards (Jenny Shipley, Ruth Richardson, Don Brash and former minister Chirs Tremain).  Jenny Shipley served for a number of years on the main parent board of one of the Chinese banks (all effectively still controlled by the Party) and has a number of senior appointments on boards sponsored by the Chinese government.    Senior National figures are closely tied into companies exporting dairy products to China.

As Brady notes, for the time being the issue is mostly around National Party figures, but surely only because their party is currently in government.  It seems unlikely that the Chinese would not be similarly keen on aligning Labour figures should the government change here.   She repeats the story of the fundraising for Phil Goff’s mayoral campaign: at a charity auction in Auckland, a bidder from China paid $150000 for the Selected Works of Xi Jinping.

Brady concludes with a big picture

SELRES_424b093c-5aa4-4648-8116-11850f67a020New Zealand’s needs to face up to some of the political differences and challenges in the New Zealand-China relationship and to investigate the extent and impact of Chinese political influence activities on our democracy. This study is a preliminary one, highlighting representative concerns. New Zealand would be wise to follow Australia’s example and take seriously the issue of China’s big push to increase its political influence activities, whether it be through a Special Commission or a closeddoor investigation. It may be time to seek a re-adjustment in the relationship, one which ensures New Zealand’s interests are foremost. Like Australia, we may also need to pass new legislation which better reflects the heightened scale of foreign influence attempts in our times. New Zealand can find a way to better manage its economic and political relationship with China, and thereby, truly be an exemplar to other Western states in their relations with China.SELRES_424b093c-5aa4-4648-8116-11850f67a020

That rings true to me. But for now, my interest is in the specifics of the Yang case.   It is extraordinary that a man with such a past –  and no interest in denouncing the tyrants he worked for –  is in our Parliament, and seems likely to be in it again next week.   But more alarming is the total silence of our elites.

I can’t believe that most of them –  media, politicians, past politicians –  are really comfortable with the situation.  But if they put their personal economic interests ahead of the interests, and values, of the people of our nation, by just keeping quiet, it makes no difference that they might be a little uncomfortable.  They have, in effect, sold their own country, and its values, for a mess of potage.

The media, and the academic community (the ones who still want to get to China anyway) are just as culpable –  most of the media not even now doing their most basic job and asking the questions – but I jotted down a list of senior politicians –  past and present –  that we should be able to look to for leadership.

We could look to current and past National Party leaders.   But Key and English have led the charge to strengthen the “vassal” relationship with the Chinese (and Brady reports that Key is now working for Comcast on its projects in China), and were the National Party leaders when Yang was recruited.    What about their predecessors?   Well, Brash chairs a Chinese bank , and Shipley has multiple Chinese directorships etc.  It would be costly to speak out.  But what about Jim Bolger –  certainly willing to speak out recently about “neoliberalism”, but what about submission to China’s interests?

What about former National ministers of finance.   Well, there is English, and Ruth Richardson (various Chinese directorships) –  and Bill Birch, but he is now quite elderly.   Or former Foreign Ministers?   Well, McCully should probably be asked about Saudi sheep deals…..and led the strategy to cosy up to China.  And Don McKinnon, but then he chairs the government’s China Council.    Any of these people could speak up –  sometimes principles cost –  but, sad as it is, perhaps it is no surprise they don’t.

And normally, a week out from an election you might expect strident comment from the Opposition.  But this time? Nothing?    And if it would disrupt the “relentlessly positive” narrative, what about former eminent Labour figures –  Cullen, Moore, Palmer, Goff, Clark?  Not a word though.

What of ACT’s leader?  Is this the sort of standard he accepts in the party he depends on?  What of the leaders of the Greens or the Maori Party?   Not a word from any of them.

The pattern of silence should leave us wondering just whose interests our leaders have been serving.     There is something to be said for politicians leaving office late in life and settling quietly into a dignified retirement.   It would be quite deeply disturbing if any of them are shaping their in-office approach to (eg) China with a view to their after-office economic opportunities –  consciously or otherwise.   A submssive approach to the Chinese government and party isn’t in our interests –  even if it might be in the personal interests of some present and former politicians and some business owners.

There are other people the media could –  if they were so minded –  seek comment from.  Mai Chen, for example, chairs something called New Zealand Asian Leaders.  Surely Jian Yang-  with such a disturbing past, so much hidden from the public, and a quite disturbing alignement with Xi Jinping’s Beijing now –  can’t be the sort of Antipodean Asian leadership they envisaged?

We aren’t, of course, a 1960s Albania to China.    But what the Yang episode highlights, as one example of the more general pattern Brady draws our attention to, is that we seem to have gone some considerable way down a slippery slope and need to pull back.  Some hard questions from the media, and some honest answers from politicians, would be a start.  And perhaps some courage on behalf of at least one of those decent people who has got too close to Chinese interests –  initially with the best will in the world – to say “enough”?

Before we (well, the rest of us) vote perhaps?

UPDATE (Wednesday pm).  This Herald article is at least in start in terms of the mainstream media addressing the issues and approaching some of the people concerned.

When Newsroom picked up and ran my post on National MP Jian Yang, they highlighted the analogy I drew

Imagine a former KGB officer serving in the New Zealand Parliament in the 1970s, advocating the interests and views of the Soviet Union

(to which I had added “and hob-nobbing with representatives of the Soviet Embassy”.

I noticed that, in response, one prominent commentator on the right suggested that the comparison (with Yang and China) was overblown, and that today’s China was nothing like the Soviet Union of the 1970s.  I’ve reflected on that and frankly I’m at a bit of a loss to see the differences that put modern China in a better light than the 1970s Soviet Union.  Unless perhaps it is the current Chinese dictators wear better suits?

Of course, there are some significant economic differences between the two regimes.  Chinese firms trade with and invest in the wider world, while the Soviet Union traded mostly (but not solely) with other communist countries.   China allows the market considerable play in matters economic, and the Soviet Union didn’t.    So long, that is, as a notionally private company concerned doesn’t step out of line (see Richard McGregor’s excellent The Party).  And some of the key dimensions of a market economy are the rule of law, a market-led allocation of credit, and the ability to fail. On none of those does China score well.

And it isn’t as if China is some startling economic success story either.    Here is a chart from a post I ran last year on China’s continuing economic failure (relative to both the US –  as representative of a leading advanced economy –  and to other east Asian countries).

China today is richer (per capita GDP) than the Soviet Union was in the 1970s, but almost every country has got a lot richer since then.  As a proportion of US (or New Zealand) GDP per capita, China’s current GDP per capita is estimated to be a bit lower today than the Soviet Union’s was in the 1970s.

Quite probably, China will close the gap to some extent over the next decade or two, even if they persist with the current credit-driven, absence of supply-side reforms, economic model.    But embedded within the system are huge misallocations of credit, and thus of real resources.   They can avoid a financial crisis, but they can’t avoid that waste.

But this isn’t primarily a post about matters economic.  A strong economy can support foreign policy ambitions, and a weak one can eventually undermine those ambitions.  So even if China were to achieve greater economic success, it shouldn’t be particularly reassuring to the rest of the world.  On checking I noticed, for example, that in 1938 German manufacturing exports were 20 per cent of the world total –  a large proportion of which will presumably have been to countries that only a year or two later were the subject of Hitler’s aggressive intentions.    There will have been plenty of people in each of those countries with a strong economic interest in making a case for Germany.

To me, there are two aspects of China –  and thus about Jian Yang’s past active service in that regime (and Party’s) cause –  that should be of concern.   There are the values the Chinese authorities apply internally, and the approach they adopt and encourage externally.   Neither should be encouraging to anyone who values the free and liberal democracy –  with all its faults –  that countries like our own built and maintained over the last few hundred years.     It is a regime that murders protestors –  what Jian Yang refers to just as “student demonstrations” –  that imprisons dissenters, that denies freedom of worship, the bans internet access to sites critical of the regime (or indeed, to services that won’t act as agents of the regime in suppressing dissent).  For decades, they forced abortions on couples who wanted more than one child.  And today they are at the forefront of using surveillance technology – much more advanced than anything the Soviet Union could use 40 years –  to keep the citizenry in check.    The obscene inequalities of wealth, flowing in the direction of the political elite and those close to them, are just another aspect of the evil.   Prada handbags and smartphones tell us nothing about the character of the regime.   (And I don’t see anything in the character of the sort of regime in this paragraph that marks it out from the Soviet Union.)

I’m not one who favours interfering in the internal governance of other countries, large or small, and no matter how unsavoury they are.     But if someone who was an active part of such a vile regime –  voluntarily a Party member –  comes to New Zealand and wants to be part of governing our country, one might reasonably expect he would (a) acknowledge his part in, and (b) denounce the evils of, the system.    As a member of the Chinese language media put it to me, the language Yang used in his maiden speech about Tianamen Square was the sort of language one would only use if one supported the brutual suppression of those demonstrations by the government and Communist Party of China –  in whose cause Jang had then been working.

But it is the foreign policy of China that should be even more disconcerting.  In the 1970s, the West and the Soviet Union and its allies were fighting the odd proxy war (eg Angola –  with Cuba on one side and South Africa on the other), and there was the invasion of Afghanistan.  I’m not about to trivialise the Soviet Union, but it was the also the era of great power detente.  Both sides were suspicious of the other –  and the risks of misinterpretations leading to nuclear conflict –  but by the 1970s few people saw the Soviet Union’s intentions as primarily expansionist or aggressive.    And the UN apart, the Soviet Union wasn’t part of most international agencies (eg IMF, World Bank, WTO/GATT).

And these days?  China remains the leading protector of North Korea.  China propounds values, and standards of international governance, through international organisations, that are inimical to those of the West.  China is an actively expansionist power –  most visibly in the South China Sea, where it has been in flagrant breach of international law.  China is a key player in cyber-espionage.  China is widely-recognised as attempting to suborn regional political leaders –  apparently successful for now in the Philippines.  And China’s strategy of attempting to exert influence in a wide range of countries through the deployment of its (current or former) citizens in other countries is pretty well-documented.   China still lays claim over a democratic state (Taiwan) and has never renounced the possibility of using force to take Taiwan.  In short, China represents a considerable threat to the sort of regional and world order that New Zealand has been a part of, and which (historically at least) its leaders were willing to champion.

(I’m not really interested in “what-aboutism”.  “Our side” does questionable things in the international sphere at times too, and as I noted the other day I’d be concerned –  albeit less so – if a former member (especially an unacknowledged one) of US intelligence services were in our Parliament.  But our values are not those of the current Chinese regime, and that regime is not content to apply its standards only in its territory.)

And then, frankly, there are two other differences: numbers and location.  The Soviet Union in the 1970s had a population similar to that of the United States, and much smaller than that of all the NATO (and associated) countries.    China –  still relatively poor in per capita income terms, as the Soviet Union was, now has (or shortly will) have the largest economy in the world.   Such a large economy buys a lot of weapons systems, and potentially a lot of clout.  And location?   The Soviet Union’s prime focus wasn’t south and east Asia. China’s is.  New Zealand is a long way from either country, but the threat to our values, and our systems, is real nonetheless –  and, compared with the 1970s, New Zealand stands more alone than it did then.

I don’t suppose China has any intention of invading New Zealand, any more than the Soviet Union did.  Something akin to vassal status will do just fine –  countries that are reluctant to stick up for what they once believed, that are reluctant to stick up for countries with similar values in east Asia, that are reluctant to call out China’s territorial expansionism or its internal abuses.  Yes, I’d say the China is at least as serious a threat to us today as the Soviet Union once way –  perhaps more so, because the threat is less well-recognised, and more insidious.  Better suits, and good hospitality.   And our own ministers –  probably of either main party –  all too eager to please.

And what of our media?  Credit goes to Newsroom (and the Financial Times) for breaking the Yian Jang story.  But what of our mainstream media?  They seem to have given the story some initial coverage, but then been keen for it to die.  I hope that is an incorrect interpretation, but a week out from an election it was striking that there was nothing at all about the story in the Dominion-Post yesterday or today, or –  as far as I could see –  in the Herald yesterday or today.  And yet this is a story about a government MP, actively recruited by senior National Party figures to in some sense “represent” the Chinese community (identity politics rule, as Stephen Franks notes), who appears to have hidden –  from the public at very least –  his active membership in the Chinese Communist Party and his service in the Chinese intelligence services, and who appears to remain close to the Chinese Embassy.   At very least, there are allegations of SIS investigations –  paralleling similar investigations around Chinese-born politicians in Canada and Australia.  And there also seem to be suggestions of incomplete, or misleading, disclosures when Yang sought New Zealand residency and/or citizenship.  It seems as though it should be a major ongoing story –  with tough questions for the Prime Minister, the National Party, John Key, the Minister of Internal Affairs, and (for that matter) the leaders of other political parties?  Does ACT regard this as acceptable in a governing party they support?  Do Labour, or the Greens?

After all, Yang appears to have more or less acknowledged his own deceptions.  There was a story on the Herald website yesterday in which he is said to be reviewing his citizenship application form.  The article ends this way

Jian Yang told the Herald on Tuesday he didn’t name the Air Force Engineering University or Luoyang People’s Liberation Army University of Foreign Languages when making the applications that led to New Zealand citizenship, which he was granted in 2004.

He instead gave the names of two Chinese universities for civilians that had “partnership” status with the military institutions where he taught intelligence agency cadets as an English lecturer.

Asked if he made a false declaration on his citizenship application, Yang said giving the name of “partnership” universities instead of the institutes he actually worked and studied at was not a false declaration and was required if he was to leave China.

But in 2004, when he was applying for New Zealand citizenship, he was living in New Zealand.  There was no obstacle to telling the truth.  Unless he counted perceived obligations to the Communist Party of China, and the military and intelligence system of China, as more important than legal obligations to complete truthfully his citizenship application form.

In truth, his citizenship doesn’t worry me overly much.  From reports I’ve seen, he seems to have been a capable academic at Auckland University.  But membership of our Parliament and, perhaps in time our executive, is a different matter.  And with two minutes research, I found the Herald profile of him from 2011 when he was first running for Parliament.    If I’d read it at the time –  and I probably did, being a junkie –  I’d have been quite impressed by the tale of triumphing over adversity and poverty, and perhaps even a little inspired (he even expresses support for some social conservative causes I put a priority on).    But that’s because of all the stuff he didn’t tell the Herald  – or voters.    Perhaps there was a clue in this line

He said the effective dictatorship in China had provided a stable platform for long-term economic policy, while a surge in international trade had improved human rights and the flow of information.

Hmmmm…….

But not a word of his membership of the Communist Party (remember only about 5 per cent of Chinese belong; it isn’t some automatic part of living in China), or of his education in a military intelligence university, or subsequent service in that intelligence system.  Not a word about it, then or since.  And not a word of criticism of this system which is inimical to the values that built and sustain this country.

As I noted the other day, perhaps he hid it from the National Party too, which would speak very poorly of their candidate vetting. Or he told them, and they didn’t care, (and perhaps even told him to keep his past quiet) which speaks even more poorly of them, their values, and their priorities.    Either way, it should be unacceptable.

So, yes, it would have been regarded as quite inconceivable in the 1970s to have had a former serving KGB officer (whatever his specific role in that establishment) as a member of the New Zealand Parliament.  If that person had grossly misrepresented their past, and continued to associate closely with the Soviet Embassy, the scandal would have been all the greater.  It should be just an unacceptable today for a former serving member of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Chinese intelligence services, having consciously misrepresented his past and never denounced the system, to be in –  and put forward again as a candidate for –  our Parliament today.