Our Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister gave an interesting speech in Washington last weekend.  It was a bit saccharine and ahistorical (past rivalries over various Pacific island and atolls anyone?) for my tastes, but the overall thrust –  urging the United States to be more active in the (south?) Pacific  – wasn’t something I much disagreed with.

The People’s Republic of China wasn’t named as a threat, but it didn’t take a genius to see the connection.  I remain somewhat sceptical that simply offering bigger “bribes” (call it development assistance if you want) is any way to build a more resilient Pacific in the medium-term.  That has to come down to values, domestic accountability (hardly likely to be fostered when lots of money is in play) and a recognition of the fundamentally evil, and corrosive, nature of the PRC regime –  whose values are as antithetical to most ordinary Pacific people, just as much as they are to most ordinary New Zealanders.   The short-sightedness (and greed?) of too many officeholders in Pacific countries is a formidable obstacle, their vanity flattered (for example) by invites to Beijing, even to meet Xi Jinping himself, whether or not their own pockets are lined.  These are mostly Christian countries, and yet when the Foreign Minister talked about the Pacific the other day there was nothing about values, nothing (for example) about freedom of religion, at time when the Beijing regime is intensifying its repression and persecution of Muslims and of Christians.   The sort of thing that would horrify most decent people (here or in the Pacific) if they knew –  as, for example, Kristallnacht did 80 years ago.  Values, not competitive aid bidding, drive societal choices in the longer term.

To the extent the speech had much attention at all locally –  which is hardly at all (has there been any thoughtful commentary from international affairs or Pacific specialists?) –  it has been on the extraordinary statement by the Prime Minister that she had not seen the speech before it was given.    It looked a lot like a significant foreign policy initiative, and yet it appeared not to have been discussed by the Cabinet. If anyone wanted evidence for Chris Trotter’s suggestion that the Prime Minister was in office but not in power, more decorative than substantive, it was hard to imagine a better example.  It looks like yet another example where there is a New Zealand First policy in some foreign affairs matter, but not necessarily a stance shared by the biggest party in government Labour.   After all, in her post-Cabinet press conference (link above) the Prime Minister was hardly offering a ringing endorsement of her Foreign Minister’s stance.   For practical purposes, they can probably both agree on flinging a bit of money around, with not much accountability, but perhaps not much beyond that.

And even if they happened to (more or less) agree on the Pacific –  and what will it come to anyway, in a US led by an inconstant troubled President, and with increasingly serious fiscal problems of its own? –  one area where Labour and New Zealand First must agree in practice is on doing and saying quite as little as possible about the PRC influence activities in New Zealand.  Some months ago, Winston Peters did make some cryptic remarks about how “something would be done” about Jian Yang, but it wasn’t clear if he meant anything then and (of course) it has come to nothing since (the Minister of Foreign Affairs doesn’t have much say over an Opposition MP).     Both seem more embarrassed by, than admiring of, Anne-Marie Brady –  in her case, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the government (Parliament as a whole in fact) would much prefer that she went away and shut up, and stopped raising awkward questions.   Neither has been willing to call out the PRC over the Xinjiang internment camps –  not even joining with many of old friends when they got together to make representations.  They wouldn’t even speak up when National’s Todd McClay was parroting Beijing’s talking points about “vocational training centres” or –  in a country with still more self-identified Christians than any other faith –  about the renewed persecutions of the Chinese churches.  They seem quite unbothered about allowing such a heinous regime to put (safely vetted for political and religous “soundness”) agents of the PRC –  nice and friendly as they may be individually –  in our kids’ schools.  And has a word been heard from the Prime Minister or the Minister of Foreign Affairs about the PRC’s abductions of Canadians in China?  Do we stand with our friends, our values?  Or do we just cower before the PRC?  Peters and Ardern (and Bridges and Shaw) show all the signs of the latter approach.

So they fling all the money they like around the Pacific.  Perhaps if they do so Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo will take them a bit more seriously.  But unless they are willing to start taking seriously the issues here at home –  and there is not a shred of evidence for any such change of heart –  it isn’t clear why any of us should take them as seriously worthy of the offices they hold.  Through some mix of fear, delusion, mendicancy (all those party donations) they’ve taken our values, our traditions, and prostituted them on some CCP altar.  Egged on –  if anything more enthusiastically –  by the National Party.

If they were ever interested in beginning to get serious, political donations might be a place to start.   And on that score, I was interested to listen to outgoing National MP Chris Finalyson’s valedictory address.   I’ve never been a great fan of Finlayson – a classic example of what is wrong with MMP, never having had to actually win an election or persuade people to vote for him –  but my view of him took a steep dive at the Rongotai candidates’ meeting last year (Finlayson was the token National Party candidate).   From the floor I asked him

“Mr Finlayson, last week one of the world’s leading newspapers, the Financial Times gave considerable prominence to a story about a New Zealand MP.  That MP had been a member of the Chinese communist party, and part of the Chinese intelligence services.  He never disclosed that past to the public when he stood for Parliament, and has never taken the opportunity to denounce the evils of the Chinese regime.  Can you comment on why it is appropriate for such a person to be in our Parliament?  And could you also comment on the new paper by Professor Anne-Marie Brady raising concerns about the extent of China’s attempts to exert political influence in New Zealand, and about the close ties of various senior National Party figures with Chinese interests?”

The question was greeted not with embarrassed silence, but with pretty vigorous applause from the floor.

Finlayson –  our Attorney-General, first law officer of the land, senior National Party minister  – got up, briefly.   His answer ran roughly as follows:

“That was a Newsroom article, timed to damage the man politically.  I’m not going to respond to any of the allegations that have been made about/against him. I think it is disgraceful that a whole class of people have been singled out for racial abuse.  As for Professor Brady, I don’t think she likes any foreigners at all.”

The man dishonoured the high offices he held.   But, somewhat to my surprise, in his valedictory address, Finlayson included these remarks.

“That’s why I think both major parties need to work together to review the rules relating to funding. I have a personal view that it should be illegal for non-nationals to donate to our political parties. Our political system belongs to New Zealanders, and I don’t like the idea of foreigners funding it. Similar concerns are now starting to be raised in other jurisdictions, and we need to work together, without recrimination, to ensure that our democracy remains our democracy”.

It is, mostly, illegal for non-nationals to donate material sums to our political parties.  I’d be happy to ban such donations completely, including those anonymous donations from abroad through the guise of charity auctions, of the sort Phil Goff funded his mayoral campaign with.    But, of course, many of the concerns serious people have about political donations –  in Australia, as well as in New Zealand –  do not relate to donations by non-nationals, but to donations by people born abroad who have become citizens, and yet retain close associations with reprehensible regimes in their country of birth (bluntly, the PRC).  I’m sceptical much can be done by law about that particular issue.  It requires political party leaders –  individually or together – to decide that there are some people they simply won’t take donations from at all.    There was a considerable fuss some years ago about the Exclusive Brethren.  No respectable party would take donations from known gang leaders or those strongly suspected of involvement in organised crime.  It shouldn’t be hard –  in a decent leader –  to make the moral choice that your party will take no donations from people with known (or strongly suspected) United Front associations.  It is what decent people would do, recognising the character of the PRC regime.

So, interesting as it was that Finlayson chose to raise the issue at all, his interjection barely scratched the surface of the issue.   But it was a (small) start from a figure who has enjoyed credibility in many circles.   Perhaps he could consider urging candidates in this year’s local body elections to commit to (a) take no donations (including through anonymous charity auctions) from non-New Zealand citizens, and (b) to take no donations even from citizens if those citizens have, or are strongly suspected to have, close ties with entities supporting highly repressive regimes in other countries.   Would it make any difference?  Probably not –  money can still be channelled less directly –  but it would be a signal to New Zealanders that their officeholders (and those bidding to take their place) took seriously the issue, the concern.    At worst, it would be interesting to hear how Phil Goff would defend refusing to make such a commitment to voters.

On another aspect of the PRC influence issue, a few weeks ago I was sent a copy of a book called “In the Jaws of the Dragon: How China is Taking Over New Zealand and Australia”, by one Ron Asher.   It is a 350 page book, apparently fairly well-documented and footnoted, now on its 5th edition (and so I’m told selling quite well) making a case that…….well, it is there in the title.   From the author’s note

This book…seeks to expose the sinister goals of the Communist government of China, which has murdered tens of millions of Chinese people since it shot its way to power in 1949, denies them basic rights and is now threatening the peace of the Pacific –  and the world –  by its excessive armaments programme and its expansionist activities in the South China Sea.  Through economic domination, aggressive immigration, bullying and other means it is trying to exert a control over Australia and New Zealand that is harmful to our sovereignty, democracy, heritage and economic prospects for the future.

There was plenty of interesting material in the book, and it was useful to have it gathered in one place.  It was interesting to learn of (former National) MP Jami-Lee Ross’s paid trips to the PRC –  which left me wondering (a) how many other MPs have had such trips, and (b) why we don’t just follow the US example and ban MPs taking any material hospitality from foreign governments, friendly or potentially hostile/threatening.   There was plenty of material –  including around Confucius Institutes (this week yet another US university decided to close theirs down), Huawei, and “aid” to various Pacific countries.

And yet much of the material had me pushing back to some extent at least.   The author is much more wary of foreign investment from the PRC than I am.  To be fair, the global tide of opinion on risks around PRC corporate investment abroad is shifting –  reinforced by the PRC laws which make it clear that even private PRC companies must follow directions of the PRC authorities (party/State).   And weak capital markets disciplines in China –  especially around SOEs –  have long left me a little nervous about any material expansion in the role of PRC banks.  It would seem crazy  –  simply an unnecessary risk, given the character of the regime – to allow, for example, our electricity or telecoms network companies to be owned or controlled by PRC-friendly interest.  I hope that when a stake in the Port of Napier is sold no one will even consider a sale to PRC interests –  port acquisitions have been a significant aspect of PRC strategy abroad in recent years, perhaps benefiting the sellers but leave societies to repent at leisure.

But I’m still not persuaded the sale of dairy farms to PRC interests, or the establishment of PRC-owned milk processing plants in New Zealand represents any material sort of threat to New Zealand, or New Zealanders.    The author notes that the (PRC) buyer will reap the profits in future, including from the ability to construct integrated supply and distribution chains.  But in a land market that is even moderately competitive, much of those gains should be captured in the value of the land at the point of sale.  Within limits, it makes sense for assets to be owned by parties best able to utilise them.  That ability is likely to be reflected in a willingness to pay.   Perhaps I’m a touch naive, but some arguments still seem to go too far for my comfort and conviction.  The growing entanglement of our universities with PRC interests –  consciously making themselves exposed to PRC political pressure –  represents more of a risk, and pressure point –  the more so  when we once looked to universities to champion the sorts of values that underpinned our society (but not the PRC).

This isn’t an attempt at a full review.  For those interested in the issue though, there is plenty to chew on, whether one ends up going quite as far as the author (or not).   Perhaps the thing I came away with most was a sense of how careless of our values our political leaders have been, how indifferent to the character of the Beijing regime, and how utterly shortsighted their approach has been for decades –  whether pursuing personal gain (which I suspect mostly isn’t the reason –  it may be different for business and academic figures), party donations, or just lemming-like prioritising trade and short-term opportunities over all.

Whatever the motive, in many respects they’ve blithely, unconcernedly, sold out New Zealand and New Zealanders, dishonouring both our own freedoms and values, and those (denied) of hundreds of millions of Chinese.   But even at this point, it isn’t clear that the PRC has clout in New Zealand beyond the deference our political officeholders –  cowering –  keep choosing (and it is wholly a matter of choice, especially at this physical distance) to pay them.   Evil people –  Xi Jinping and his party and regime – will do what they will do, as Hitler or Stalin before them did.  We can’t do much about them –  hoping against hope for regime change –  but we can choose what responses we tolerate in our officeholders.    If we care at all about PRC influence in the Pacific, our officeholders might start by demonstrating that they take the issue –  the regime and its threat – seriously at home.  What matters to someone is best demonstrated by the price they are willing to pay for it.

 

I have good memories of a young Don McKinnon.  It was early 1980, my first year at Victoria University, and Don McKinnon was a first-term National MP.  It was just a few months after the Soviet occupation/invasion of Afghanistan, and there was a strong push from many governments in the West against competing in that (northern) summer’s Olympic Games, to be held in Moscow.   Don McKinnon was invited along to articulate and defend the government’s stance. It was a pretty hostile audience as I recall –  the median student (or perhaps just the median of those who would turn up to lunchtime political meetings) was pretty left-wing (and of those who weren’t so left-wing not many had much time for the then Prime Minister, Rob Muldoon).  I no longer remember many of the details of the event, but I do recall McKinnon vigorously fighting his corner, and making the case that New Zealand athletes shouldn’t be part of one of tyranny’s great celebrations –  first Olympics in a Communist country) in the wake of such egregious aggression.   Those were days of considerably greater moral clarity about such regimes –  no doubt helped by the fact that there was not much trade with the Soviet Union, and our universities weren’t reliant on the Soviet market.

That was then.  Today’s Don McKinnon is full of years, knighted no less.  And any moral clarity on these sorts of issues appears to have been lost long ago.  For these days, Don McKinnon is chair of the (largely) taxpayer-funded New Zealand China Council, set up by the previous government to run propaganda around the People’s Republic of China, and help ensure that public discontent around supping with the devil never becomes too problematic.   Those aren’t their words of course, but the gist of the actual words they do use isn’t that different.     They don’t exist to do foreign diplomacy (that is what we have MFAT for), they don’t exist to do business (individual firms and universities for that, they exist to propagandise New Zealanders –  with our own money.

Mostly, the part-time Executive Director (of whom more below) speaks for the China Council.  But every so often –  perhaps whenever it seems as if a nerve has been touched – they wheel out the chair Don McKinnon.  There was an op-ed in the Herald this time last year, ably responded to by Simon Chapple of Victoria University –  a rare New Zealand academic willing to express scepticism.   Sir Don wanted us to “respect” the People’s Republic of China –  it was never made clear why, given the nature of the regime –  and if there were ever any issues well the great unwashed could trust the “relevant agencies” to deal with them (conveniently ignoring that fact that many of the issues raised by Anne-Marie Brady a few months earlier were not illegal –  they were questions of instead of right and wrong, surely matters for open debate.

Earlier this week Don McKinnon was back in the pages of the Herald.   Straw men abounded.    McKinnon opened with the Hauwei provisional decision taken by the GCSB.  You’ll recall that when decision was announced the China Council put out a statement lamenting the proposed ban.  I’m still a bit puzzled by that statement given that the chief executives of MFAT and NZTE sit on the Council’s Board and were presumably party to this public criticism of one of our intelligence agencies.

In his article this week, Don McKinnon has moved on a bit.

The substance of the decision is not for me to debate, but the risk is that it complicates the already complex management of the trade and economic relationship at a time of geopolitical tension.

but it really isn’t a much better stance from a former Foreign Minister, in a body largely funded by the taxpayer (not Huawei).   Shouldn’t he be lamenting the fact –  unquestioned –  that the PRC is engaged in far-reaching cyber-intrusions and intellectual property theft in much of the world, the sort of approach that might leave anyone cautious about letting a PRC regime-controlled company (as they all are) loose on a 5G network?

But what of those straw men?  This was the opening line of the article

The recent GCSB ruling in respect of Huawei must surely be a body blow for those who allege the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party are influencing New Zealand’s policy-making.

A “body blow”?  Well, perhaps if anyone were claiming that New Zealand governments always and everywhere do what the PRC would prefer.  But I’m not aware of any serious participant in these debates who says that. Beijing probably wasn’t too keen on New Zealand purchasing the P8 aircraft, and would presumably prefer we opted out of Five Eyes too.  But they must be absolutely delighted that former PLA intelligence official, Communist Party member, Jian Yang still sits in our Parliament – even after all that background, and the active misrepresentations to the authorities, is in the public domain.  Or that when new defence policy documents include a few mild but honest words, the only criticism in the political sphere is from an Opposition leader –  himself having signed us up to an aspiration to fusion of civilisations – concerned that the government might upset Beijing.  Or that the government refuses to participate in joint Western efforts to protest the gross abuses in Xinjiang (which the Opposition describe, PRC style, as vocational training camps).  Or that Yikun Zhang, with clear and strong ties to the regime and Party can manage to be awarded –  with bipartisan support –  royal honours for services to New Zealand.  How they must have chortled when they heard that.  Or that both Ardern and Bridges are apparently so scared of a Beijing reaction that neither can manage a forthright defence of Anne-Marie Brady, or of ethnic Chinese New Zealanders being intimidated –  here in New Zealand –  by Beijing.

Don McKinnon purports to believe that none of this is an issue at all.  Apparently we once –  years ago –  mentioned the South China Sea, and that was quite enough.  As for political donations, there are plenty of serious people around –  even people with ties to his own organisation –  who evince unease about that situation –  about, for example, another former Foreign Minister financing his mayoral campaign substantially with anonymous donations from the mainland.   McKinnon isn’t stupid, and will know all this, so one can only conclude he doesn’t care a jot – about the integrity of the political system of his own country.   The 1980 version of Don McKinnon wouldn’t have tolerated a KGB/GRU officer –  never once heard to criticise any aspect of the USSR –  in our Parliament.  2018 Don McKinnon thinks Jian Yang’s presence in Parliament is just fine –  apparently any concerns are “unsubstantiated” (you mean the ones he himself belatedly acknowledged?) –  and has the man sitting on the China Council’s advisory board.

The whole thing is suffused with that determination never ever to upset Beijing –  and whenever anything might (eg Huawei) the emphasis is on the PRC perspective, not the New Zealand one.   This reaches egregious extremes in this observation

National security is important but so too is our increasingly multi-faceted relationship with China.

National security isn’t everything.  Civil liberties and our democracy matter a great deal too.  But for a former longserving Foreign Minister to suggest, in writing (presumably carefuly drafted) that national security is something we should compromise on to keep the regime in Beijing happy is…….extraordinary (and that is probably too mild a word).

And this is one of the problems with the China Council.  They do now often include a ritual line about our “very different values”.  It is there in this week’s article too.  But, strangely –  conveniently for them –  they never ever spell out the nature of those differences.  Doing so might require them to speak or write in a way that suggested disapproval of aspects of the PRC –  or, and I hope this isn’t so, a genuine belief that the PRC system is just as good as our own, only different, and simply nothing to worry about.  So we never hear about (say) the imprisonment of a million or more people in Xinjiang, about fresh attacks on Christians in China, about the widespread theft of intellectual property, about a regime so insecure images of Winnie-the-Pooh are being banned, about the absence of the rule of law, about real military threats to free and democractic Taiwan, about the absence of freedom of speech, or even about the lawless  revenge abductions of a couple of Canadians this week.  Nothing.  And why?  Because there are deals and donations to keep flowing, and none of these things matter a jot –  in the only sense that reveals importance, a willingness to pay a price (probably quite a modest one, if at all).

McKinnon ends with two more incredible comments.  The first was

The risk of overreaction in New Zealand is all too real, however.

Really?  With our supine political and business class, desperate as ever to play the issues down, and no doubt grateful to Sir Don for putting pen to paper.   Some sign of any reaction among our purported leaders would be worthy of note.  But then the China Council’s view of “overreaction” seems to be any reaction whatever –  just let us get on with the deals and donations.  Trust us…..

And at the very end

The short step from rational debate to panic can come at a heavy cost.

So never ever upset Beijing, or the thugs with the baseball bats will extort a price.  But,trust us……they really are good guys, we are better for dealing with them, they’re good guys.  Really.

The thing that really staggers me about the China Council is that with all those senior figures and all that taxpayers’ money the quality and depth of their propaganda and advocacy is so limited.  They might have good practical arguments to make on some points, but making them should involve engaging substantively with the sort of detailed concerns being raised.  The China Council has never made any attempt to substantively engage with Anne_Marie Brady’s paper –  and, shamefully, has been totally silent on the apparent attempts to physically intimidate her (and thus to scare others).  And they are fellow New Zealanders.

As it happens, there was another good example yesterday of our cowering “leaders”.  Newsroom has an account of MFAT’s appearance at a parliamentary select committee, where much of the discussion seems to have been around the PRC, the “FTA”- upgrade, and so on.  I’m not going to excerpt the story, but read it and all you sense is fearfulness from both sides –  if the Opposition is critical it is that the government might have upset Beijing.  There is no sense of self-respect, no sense of values that matter, just a backdrop of deals and donations –  and that weirdly misplaced view about the significance of the PRC to New Zealand’s economic fortunes so actively fostered by yet another former Foreign Minister, Murray McCully.

And, finally, I must have hit a bit of nerve somewhere near the China Council.  After a post the other day, this tweet appeared on the Executive Director, Stephen Jacobi’s feed.

Which was a bit odd really.  I went back and looked at the post in question.   And I couldn’t find any examples of me calling him names.  I did note that “he appears to be Christian” but as on his Twitter page he calls himself an Anglican, and was tweeting a photo of an Advent service, that didn’t seem an unreasonable deduction.  And as one Christian to another, it can hardly count as name-calling.

So I had a look back at any of my other past posts I could find when I’d written about Jacobi (here, here, here, here and here were the ones I could find).   And yet anything resembling name-calling seemed thin on the ground (which was relief, because it is something I try hard to avoid –  perhaps not always successfully).   In one of those early posts I introduced Jacobi this way

The Council employs a part-time Executive Director, Stephen Jacobi.  He spent considerable time at MFAT, but from his own account his focus was Europe and North America (including as our deputy high commissioner in Canada) and in trade negotiations.  Since leaving MFAT in 2005 he has run his own consulting firm, and been employed as the public face of various trade-related bodies, including serving as Executive Director of the NZ US Council from 2005 to 2014.  He is articulate and readily available to the media, but has no specialist expertise in China or (indeed) on the workings of New Zealand democracy.   That isn’t a criticism –  after all, neither do I –  just to note that his arguments, and evidence, need to be reflected on and carefully examined, perhaps having regard to the interests that are paying him, not as coming from an expert authority in the area.

And that still seems right, and fair.  He is a paid lobbyist and advocate –  propagandist wouldn’t be too strong a word.  Those are, more or less, job descriptions.  I’m sure he believes most or all of what the job requires him to say.  It is just a shame that the institution for which he works seems to have abandoned all sense of good and evil when it comes to the PRC.

But in the search for anything that might resemble name-calling, I did across lots of arguments, analysis, and some evidence. I don’t particularly expect Jacobi or the China Council to engage with me –  although I’d be happy for them to do so – but the thing is that they don’t engage with China experts (notably Anne-Marie Brady) either.  Instead, they play distraction, suggest racism is at work, call debates “unedifying” rather than engage in them, or  –  as in this case –  suggest that all there is is name-calling.  With so many resources at their disposal, that approach doesn’t exactly redound to their credit.  With the politicians on side perhaps it doesn’t matter for now, but such large disconnnects between the values of a people, and the attitudes and practices of their “leaders”, are unlikely to last forever.  It was Scott Morrison who only a few weeks ago observed that we –  citizens of free and democratic countries –  have to be more than just the sum of our deals.  Or, as I added, of our political party donations.

The Herald this morning reported on a new open letter in support of Anne-Marie Brady, this one from 169 (at present –  the letter is still open apparently) overseas experts on issues relating to the People’s Republic of China.   As the signatories note:

Since the publication of her work on global United Front work, Brady’s home and office have been subjected to burglaries, during which no valuable items other than electronic devices were stolen. Most recently, her car was found to have been tampered with in ways consistent with intentional sabotage. According to media reports, Interpol and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service  (SIS) are involved in the investigation. In China, academics were interrogated by Ministry of State Security agents after their institutions hosted Brady. Brady has also been personally attacked in media under the direction of the CCP, both in the PRC and in New Zealand. Taken together, these circumstances make it likely that this harassment campaign constitutes a response to her research on the CCP’s influence, and an attempt to intimidate her into silence.

Despite the evidence of CCP interference provided in Brady’s research, of which the harassment campaign appears to be a further example, the New Zealand government has been slow to take action and failed to acknowledge that a problem exists…..

Far from unique to New Zealand, the CCP’s global United Front tactics and other political influence operations have been documented in other locations, in Europe, Oceania, Asia and the Americas. ….Whether within or without the limits of the law of their target countries, these activities have considerable effects on their societies and merit evidence-based research and the attention of politicians and the media. The harassment campaign against Brady risks having a chilling effect on scholarly inquiry, allowing the CCP to interfere in the politics of our societies unfettered by informed scrutiny.

We urge the New Zealand authorities to grant Professor Brady the necessary protection to allow her to continue her research, sending a clear signal to fellow researchers that independent inquiry can be protected in democratic societies and conducted without fear of retribution.

We join other voices in support of Professor Brady, which have included statements by a New Zealand Chinese community organisation, some of her Canterbury University colleagues, New Zealand academics and two Australian Sinologists, as well as many others on social media.

We further hope decision makers and the public at large, in New Zealand and elsewhere, will engage with evidence-based research on the CCP’s United Front tactics, such as Brady’s Magic Weapons, and give due consideration to policy advice emanating from such research.

It is welcome that these (mostly) foreign experts are coming together in support of Professor Brady. But what sort of country have we become where such stands are even thought necessary?   Once upon a time this was a bastion of democracy and liberty, and now our “leaders” cower in the corner, apparently unbothered about “little things” like the apparent intimidation of Professor Brady.   It is a shameful choice.  There are deal flows to keep going –  students to enrol for the new academic year for example –  and funding political parties doesn’t seem to come cheap.   And barely a voice in Parliament –  none from anywhere in our main parties – that appears troubled in the slightest.

Before I saw that open letter I’d been meaning to draw attention to an even more trenchant statement from closer to home, this one by Paul Buchanan, a former academic with a background in the US system, and who now runs a consultancy that describes itself this way

36th Parallel Assessments is a non-partisan, non-governmental geopolitical risk and strategic assessment consultancy.

Buchanan is an American who has lived here for a long time, and is in the process of becoming a citizen.  From what I’ve read of his stuff over the years, his personal politics probably lean left. But his post pulls few punches about the abdication of responsibility being displayed by the Labour-led government on this issue.

I do not mean to bang on about the Anne Marie Brady case but since it is coming up on one year since the campaign of criminal harassment began against her, I feel compelled to mention how the Labour-led government’s silence has been used as a window of opportunity by pro-China conspiracy theorists to question her credibility and defame her. Until I blocked the troll I shall call “skidmark,” this was even seen here on KP [Kiwipolitic blog] where he launched numerous attacks on professor Brady as well as question the very notion that the burglaries and vandalism that she has been subjected to were somehow related to her work on PRC influence operations in NZ.

He goes on the outline a number of strands of attack made on Professor Brady  by these “trolls”, each more far-fetched or unpleasant than the last.   There are even people echoing the ludicrous and desperate claim made on the hustings last year by the then Attorney-General Chris Finlayson that Professor Brady was saying the stuff she was becasue she was “racist”.

Buchanan goes on

It is very likely that the government’s reticence to talk about the case is due to diplomatic concerns, and that political pressure has been put on the Police and SIS to delay offering any more information about the status of the investigation

That’s a serious claim, but almost nine months on –  while the Prime Minister pretends this is just a normal suburban Police inquiry – it sounds plausible.  Police, after all, have form in bending to the political wind.

Gathering from the tone of her recent remarks it appears that Ms. Brady is frustrated and increasingly frightened by the government’s inaction. I sympathise with her predicament: she is just one person tilting against much larger forces with relatively little institutional backing. I also am annoyed because this is a NZ citizen being stalked and serially harassed on sovereign NZ soil, most probably because of things that she has written, and yet the authorities have done pretty much nothing other than take statements and dust for fingerprints.

And expressed no hint of concern, let alone outrage, at the possibility of the involvement of a foreign power.  (And, of course, no apparent interest at all in taking seriously the substantive concerns Professor Brady was highlighting about PRC “sharp power” in New Zealand.)

Buchanan concludes with a telling parallel and highlights just how unacceptable the government’s handling of this matter –  apparently more interested in Beijing than in Brady –  should be seen as.

If this was a domestic dispute in which someone was burglarising and vandalising a neighbour’s or ex-partner’s property, I imagine that the cops would be quick to establish the facts and intervene to prevent escalation.  If that is the case then the same applies here. Because to allow these crimes to go unpunished without offering a word as to why not only demonstrates a lack of competence or will. It also encourages more of the same, and not just against Ms. Brady.

If one of the foundational duties of the democratic state is to protect the freedom and security of its citizens, it appears that in in this instance NZ has so far failed miserably. The government needs to step up and provide assurances that the investigation will proceed honestly to a verifiable conclusion and that it will work to ensure the safety of Anne Marie Brady against those who would wish to do her harm.

To not do so is to abdicate a basic responsibility of democratic governance.

Of course, the main opposition party shares in responsibility for, and ownership of, the government’s shameful abdication.

As I noted, one of the ludicrous claims made against Professor Brady –  fluent in Chinese, married to a Chinese man –  is that her work is motivated by racism.  One of those who has made such claims in the Chinese-language media is Auckland writer Morgan Xiao, a past or present international student at the University of Auckland.  He apparently writes fairly prolifically in various of the (CCP-controlled) Chinese-language outlets, which is of course his right.   His Facebook page however advertises his Labour Party associations, listing himself as a member of Labour Botany electorate committee, and featuring of photo of himself posing with the Prime Minister.   His writings are pretty pro-Beijing, and very anti-Brady.  He has accused her of racism, and also of running the arguments she does because she has been paid by the Americans to do so.  It is pretty florid stuff –  he has new piece here this week (open in Chrome and Google Translate will give you the gist).

A few weeks ago, the Auckland-based dissident author, and editor of the Beijing Spring magazine, Chen Weijian published (in Chinese) a takedown of some of Morgan Xiao’s recent writing on this subject.   I’ve previously published a translation of Chen Weijian’s article on Yikun Zhang (he of the National Party donations controversy, the Labour-bestowed QSM, and the close Beijing connection), and I was approached as to whether I’d be willing to make more widely available a translation of the latest article.   The translation has been undertaken by Luke Gilkison (and reviewed by a native Chinese speaker) a recent graduate in Chinese language and literature who has also spent time living and studying in China.  Both he and I would emphasise that the article is the work of Chen Weijian, and the views expressed are his and his alone, but his arguments seem to deserve wider circulation, especially given that Morgan Xiao himself is repeatedly returning to the issues.   The rhetorical style isn’t mine, and in some areas his conclusions seem a little over-optimistic to me (I’m not so sure that “the mainstream political ideology of our time is liberal democracy”).    But for those interested, the full translation is here

Chen Weijian Morgan Xiao Gilkison translation

As a flavour

On the matter of New Zealand–China relations, Xiao went on to say this: 

For a long time now, the National Party and the Chinese government have had frequent interactions. Many former National MPs have gone on to consultancy jobs within CCP-linked companies, and every time the Chinese government hosts an event, the number of National Party attendees far exceeds that of any other party. It’s evident that within National, at least, it is well known that China and New Zealand’s relationship is innocuous – otherwise how could these two parties, National and the CCP, be so close? Would that not be treason? 

This last part is said very well. Although I don’t know for sure what National would say to these assertions, I’m fairly sure they would have some choice words for this young man. Something along the lines of, “How on Earth is this helping us? You’re clearly intending to ruin us. Subterfuge!

And

He writes an editorial column on the website Skykiwi, and he’s a contributing writer for the People’s Daily, a state-run Chinese newspaper, where he writes under his Chinese name, Xiao Zhihong (肖志鸿). You’re more likely to find Xi Jinping thought in his Skykiwi column than anything reflecting New Zealand values. This quote from Xi Jinping appears in one of his columns, for example: “Our vision for democracy is not merely a system of one person, one vote. We strive to reflect the will of the people, and in this regard we not only do not fall short of the West, but we greatly surpass it.”

How does Xiao understand CCP-style democracy and “universal values”? This is his opinion on the Tiananmen Square massacre: 

Murderers and arsonists are criminals with no hope for rehabilitation. ….. But those June 4th bottom-feeders burnt and beat to death hundreds of soldiers, set fire to thousands of vehicles, and looted an army arsenal. People who commit wanton violence and destruction like this are beyond hope of rehabilitation. The condemnation of these crimes is a universal value. I say let us string up these June 4th rioters and beat them!

Perhaps if the Prime Minister ever chooses to speak out against the intimidation of Professor Brady, or to begin to take seriously the issues Professor Brady has repeatedly raised, she might make clear that she strongly disapproves of this sort of stuff from a Labour Party electorate committee member.

Then again, I guess Morgan Xiao was really only following her lead, when a few months ago she was committing to closer relations between Labour and the CCP and of party president Nigel Haworth who was in Beijing praising the regime and Xi Jinping just a few months earlier.

It is an abdication of New Zealand values –  hand in hand with the National Party.  We need leaders who see government, and international relations, as more than just the sum of the deals, the sum of the flow of political party donations.  There is little sign that we have such “leaders” anywhere in politics.

That was the sub-title to the substantial (200 pages or so) new report released last week by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Chinese (PRC) influence activities in the United States (but with eight case studies on the situation in other countries, including one on New Zealand which draws largely on the work of Anne-Marie Brady).

The report is the product of a working group of 33 academics, think-tankers, and journalists specialising in PRC-related issues.  Around half those involved are academics.  Of the 33, 10 are ‘international associates’ –  again, about half academics –  bringing perspectives to bear on PRC activities in other countries, including three Australians and Anne-Marie Brady.

I read the report over the weekend.  I’m not sure there is a great deal new in it, but it is easy to read, and extensively documented, and the accumulation of material helps build the picture.     And even on New Zealand, there are striking lines from the Magic Weapons paper that one forgets

The Chinese government considers New Zealand an “exemplar of how it would like its relations to be with other states.” One unnamed Chinese diplomat even characterized relations between the two countries as similar to China’s close ties with totalitarian Albania in the early 1960s.

Or bits I’d never noticed previously

Individuals with strong ties to United Front organizations have donated several million dollars, primarily to the National Party. One such individual, who donated $112,000 to the National Party in 2017, is listed as an officer of no fewer than seven United Front organizations.

Then again, it was Labour bestowing the QSM on Yikun Zhang.

But the focus of the report is on the United States.  In many areas one is struck by the similarity of the story to the work done on these issues for New Zealand.

The Chinese Communist party-state leverages a broad range of party, state, and non-state actors to advance its influence-seeking objectives, and in recent years it has significantly accelerated both its investment and the intensity of these efforts. While many of the activities described in this report are state-directed, there is no single institution in China’s party-state that is wholly responsible…..   Because of the pervasiveness of the party-state, many nominally independent actors— including Chinese civil society, academia, corporations, and even religious institutions— are also ultimately beholden to the government and are frequently pressured into service to advance state interests.

or

China’s influence activities have moved beyond their traditional United Front focus on diaspora communities to target a far broader range of sectors in Western societies, ranging from think tanks, universities, and media to state, local, and national government institutions. China seeks to promote views sympathetic to the Chinese Government, policies, society, and culture; suppress alternative views; and co-opt key American players to support China’s foreign policy goals and economic interests.

or (more remarkably in the much larger US market)

In the American media, China has all but eliminated the plethora of independent Chinese-language media outlets that once served Chinese American communities. It has co-opted existing Chinese-language outlets and established its own new outlets.

The report builds to a set of policy principles and recommendations.  They group the principles and recommendations under three headings: Transparency, Integrity, and Reciprocity.   Under the first two headings, most of what they suggest seems (a) sensible, and (b) relevant to other countries where these issues arise, including New Zealand.

Here are the Transparency principles (there are more detailed recommendations below many of these).

Transparency is a fundamental tenet and asset of democracy, and the best protection against the manipulation of American entities by outside actors.

• American NGOs should play an important role in investigating and monitoring illicit activities by China and other foreign actors. They should as well seek to inform themselves about the full range of Chinese influence activities and the distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate influence efforts.

• Congress should perform its constitutional role by continuing to investigate, report on, and recommend appropriate action concerning Chinese influence activities in the United States. It should update relevant laws and regulations regarding foreign influence, and adopt new ones, to strengthen transparency in foreign efforts to exert influence.

• Executive branch agencies should similarly investigate and publicize, when appropriate, findings concerning these activities, with a view to promoting healthy and responsible vigilance among American governmental and nongovernmental actors.

• The US media should undertake careful, fact-based investigative reporting of Chinese influence activities, and it should enhance its knowledge base for undertaking responsible reporting.

• Faculty governance is the key to preserving academic freedom in American universities. All gifts, grants, endowments, and cooperative programs, including Confucius Institutes, should be subjected to the usual procedures of faculty oversight.

• US governmental and nongovernmental sectors should disclose financial and other relationships that may be subject to foreign influence.

And yet, to reflect on this list of items is to realise how much more serious the issue is here.   There are few relevant NGOs, the media is struggling and thinly-resourced, and instead of Parliament taking any sort of lead we have the former PLA intelligence official sitting in Parliament, not apparently bothering either National or Labour, and Raymond Huo –  with various United Front connections, and openly championing PRC perspectives –  chairs our Parliament’s Justice committee, dealing with electoral law.    The Opposition leader is soliciting large donations through people with close connections to Beijing, and Jian Yang is reputed to be the biggest National Party fundraiser.  (Again, in this regard US campaign finance laws, including disclosure provisions, are well ahead of our own.) The National Party’s president praises the Beijing regime and its leader, and if Labour’s president hasn’t been heard from for a while, he has form in that area too.   Our system is already corrupted, whereas (from the report) on this particular dimension the threat to the US system is still nascent.

As for the executive (political and official), they remain keen to say quite as little as possible – on any dimension of the issue (donations, cyber-security, Chinese language media, threats –  whether to Professor Brady or people in the ethnic Chinese community), and direct money to propaganda outfits like the New Zealand China Council to help keep the populace in line.  Winston Peters this morning refused to even accept an interviewer’s description of the PRC as becoming “increasingly authoritarian” (although, as he implied, there has not been a time since 1949 when it been anything other than highly authoritarian and repressive).

What of disclosure?  I linked the other day to a comment from consultant and former academic Paul Buchanan about PRC funding of parts of our universities.  If true, these contributions (and those of any other foreign government) should be fully and routinely disclosed.   And what about travel?   In the flurry of stories about Yikun Zhang it emerged that the Mayor of Southland had been travelling to the PRC, working closely with (and travelling at the expense of) Beijing-affiliated Zhang.   I was struck reading the Hoover report by the observation that US members of Congress can’t accept gifts of travel, and the same day I read that a reader sent me a link to a story about Clutha Southland National MP Hamish Walker (and other local body officials) on (PRC) paid trips to China.   Shouldn’t any such (paid for) trips simply be prohibited?  I’m sure MPs do their jobs better for some travel, but either they personally or the New Zealand taxpayer should be paying.  Not vested interests –  corporate or other governments.

What about integrity?  These were the high-level principles

Foreign funding can undermine the independence of American institutions, and various types of coercive and covert activities by China (and other countries) directly contradict core democratic values and freedoms, which must be protected by institutional vigilance and effective governance.

• Openness and freedom are fundamental elements of American democracy and intrinsic strengths of the United States and its way of life. These values must be protected against corrosive actions by China and other countries.

• Various institutions—but notably universities and think tanks—need to enhance sharing and pooling of information concerning Chinese activities, and they should promote more closely coordinated collective action to counter China’s inappropriate activities and pressures. This report recommends that American institutions within each of the above two sectors (and possibly others) formulate and agree to a “Code of Conduct” to guide their exchanges with Chinese counterparts.

• When they believe that efforts to exert influence have violated US laws or the rights of American citizens and foreign residents in the United States, US institutions should refer such activities to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

• Rigorous efforts should be undertaken to inform the Chinese American community about potentially inappropriate activities carried out by China. At the same time, utmost efforts must be taken to protect the rights of the Chinese American community, as well as protecting the rights of Chinese citizens living or studying in the United States.

• Consideration should be given to establishing a federal government office that American state and local governments and nongovernmental institutions could approach—on a strictly voluntary basis—for advice on how best to manage Chinese requests for engagement and partnership. This office could also provide confidential background on the affiliations of Chinese individuals and organizations to party and state institutions.

That last suggestion seemed like one that should be considered here, as local government figures seem all to keen on accepting PRC approaches for relationships, oblivious to (or unconcerned by) the wider political context.  I’m not sure what Yikun Zhang’s interest in the Mayor of Southland specifically is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t just that they got on well over a beer.  As the  report notes

….it is important for local officials to understand that local American “exchange” companies that bring Chinese delegations to the United States and promote professional interactions between the United States and China all depend on official PRC sanction and have received approval to receive Chinese delegations. The business model of such companies is, of necessity, as much political as financial. Even if they conduct high-quality programs, they should not be viewed as disinterested actors. They, too, are subject to rules made by the Chinese Communist Party, its united front bureaucracy, and united front strategic imperatives.

Where I was a bit more sceptical –  and where there seems to be some ongoing debate –  was around the idea of Reciprocity.    As academics, think-tankers and journalists, they are  –  as group – frustrated over how difficult it is for many to get visa access to the PRC, research in the PRC, use PRC government archives etc.  They contrast this to the fairly open access PRC researchers and employees of PRC media outlets have in the United States, and propose that the US should tighten up to try to gain greater access for outside researchers and journalists to China.  One can understand their grievance, but are these people really suggesting that open societies (the US or places like New Zealand) should adopt a PRC approach to things?    When it comes to foreign trade, “retaliatory” tariffs mostly end up hurting consumers in the country imposing them. Perhaps things are different when it comes to idea, research etc, but surely one of the great strengths – not vulnerabilities –  of our sort of system is our openness?

Early in the report I was struck by the observation that the working group did not “generally oppose” Confucius Institutes  (three in New Zealand, very many in the US –  although some have since been closed by the host universities).  But as I read on I found the specific recommendations

Confucius Institutes We do not endorse calls for Confucius Institutes to be closed, as long as several conditions are met.

US institutions should make their CI agreements public to facilitate oversight by members of the university community and other concerned parties. Those agreements, in turn, must grant full managerial authority to the host institution (not on a shared basis with the Hanban), so the university has full control over what a CI teaches, the activities it undertakes, the research grants it makes, and whom it employs. The clause in all Hanban contracts that CIs must operate “according to China’s laws” must be deleted.   If these standards cannot be attained, then the CI agreements should be terminated.

Furthermore, universities should prevent any intervention by CIs in curricular requirements and course content in their overall Chinese studies curricula or other areas of study by maintaining a clear administrative separation between academic centers and departments on the one hand, and CIs on the other. Finally, universities must ensure that all public programming offered by their CIs conform to academic standards of balance and diversity and do not cross the line to become a platform for PRC propaganda, or even a circumscribed view of a controversial issue. In fact, this report would suggest that universities not permit Confucius Institutes to become involved in public programming that goes beyond the CI core mission of education about Chinese language and culture. To go beyond these two categories invites opportunities for politicized propaganda.

As I understand it, few of those tests would be met in respect of the New Zealand Confucius Institutes (the one that is, as I understand it, is that the Confucius Institutes are not involved in the host university’s own courses or curriculum).   And, in addition, there is the unstated dimension as to whether our governments and universities should be facilitating the presence of PRC-appointed and paid staff in our schools –  the PRC being one of the most heinous regimes on the planet (as well as ruling a relatively poor country, which means we allow the taxes of poor foreigners to help pay for the education of our kids.)  If the PRC wants to subsidise Chinese-language learning then good luck to them, but let them set up downtown and market for clients in the way other countries’ language-teaching operations (Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute) do.

Reprising a theme in my post on Saturday, there was this line about the compromised nature of universities.

The message from China to US universities is clear: Do not transgress the political no-go zones of the Chinese Communist Party or government, or you will pay a price. Sometimes the pressure is overt; other times it is more subtle and indirect, but no less alarming. Some American faculty members report troubling conversations with university administrators who continue to view Chinese students as such a lucrative revenue stream that it should not be endangered by “needlessly irritating Chinese authorities.”

There is lots more in the report, which is well-worth reading if you have the time.

Perhaps my bottom-line unease about the report was a bit of a reluctance to call a spade a spade.    For example, at least amid the discussion of the difficulties foreign academics and journalists face in the PRC, there was either a touching naivete, or a wilful refusal to face the fact, that the PRC is not a normal country, that just needs a few nudges to bring their attitudes and behaviours into line.   Why would one expect the PRC to behave differently, given the nature of the regime?   Obviously, all those involved know much about the true situation, but there was an apparent reluctance to say out loud that the party/State is  –  and for decades has been –  a malevolent force, at home, abroad, and increasingly in other countries.  Look at the tens of millions killed under the depraved indifference of the Party, the masss incarcerations, the forced organ transplant, at the near-total absence of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the rule of law, or at the decades of the one-child policy. Look at the huge scale industrial espionage.  Look at the militarisation of the South China Sea, the constant threats to free and democratic Taiwan, or all the influence activities the report documents in the US and other countries, including attempting to subvert ethnic Chinese abroad and pressure them –  whatever there citizenship –  to advance PRC ends.  I know some people regard comparisons between the PRC and late-1930s Germany as overstated or unhelpful.  But such parallels seem increasingly valid –  not as prophecy, but as description –  and helpful in prompting those –  some perhaps individuallly decent people –  who just go along, to stop and think about the nature of the evil they accommodate or abet.  New Zealand politicians, of both stripes, as an example.

We have to be more than sum of our deals, more than the flow of political donations.

People might (as I do) distrust Trump on these issues for his typical inconstancy.  The difference here is that there is a constancy, but one that seems determined to, in effect, serve PRC interests, not the interests of New Zealanders, or the values that underpin our society (perhaps those involved try to tell themselves the two interests are much the same?).   That is why I still regard the “choose between China and the US” line as a false one.  Our governments could choose to go along with much of whatever (limited amount) the US is doing in foreign policy (or not), and still have abandoned any sense of integrity around our own system.  Personally, much as I welcomed the decision to buy the P-8 aircraft earlier in the year, I’d be more persuaded by our “leaders” if they had

• combined to get Jian Yang and Raymond Huo out of Parliament,
• defunded the China Council,
• amended electoral laws to stop Phil Goff funding his mayoral campaign with anonymous mainland donations and to force comprehensive disclosure (at the level of the ultimate human donors) of all significant political donations,
• done something to manage the exposure of the universities and the way in which that exposure risks compromising effective freedom to speak,
• agreed together to stop issuing statements of praise for the PRC and Xi Jinping, and
• foreswore accepting donations from anyone with significant United Front connections.

As a start.

Without steps like that, we could end up banning Huawei,  buying P-8s, being in the good graces of the US and Australia, and it just wouldn’t matter much. We’d still have severely compromised the integrity of our political system and our own longer-term interests.

 

A couple of days ago the prominent US economics blog Marginal Revolution highlighted a university in the United States which had taken out insurance against a significant drop in revenue from Chinese students.   The underlying article was here.  The policy had been taken out last year, but only now has the broker allowed the transaction to be publicised.

Here’s the gist

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has paid $424,000 to insure itself against a significant drop in tuition revenue from Chinese students.

In what is thought to be a world first, the colleges of business and engineering at the university signed a three-year contract with an insurance broker to pay the annual six-figure sum, which provides coverage of up to $60 million.

and

Jeff Brown, dean of the Gies College of Business, told Times Higher Education that the insurance would be “triggered” in the event of a 20 percent drop in revenue from Chinese students at the two colleges in a single year as a result of a “specific set of identifiable events.”

“These triggers could be things like a visa restriction, a pandemic, a trade war — something like that that was outside of our control,” he said.

Tuition revenue from Chinese students makes up about a fifth of the business college’s revenue.

Brown said that the insurance would cover the colleges’ losses if the decline was temporary and buy the university time to “make some adjustments to where we recruit” if it became a longer-term issue.

The article refers to the comments, mentioned here the other day, from a former head of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Last month, Peter Varghese, chancellor of Australia’s University of Queensland, suggested that universities should put revenues from Chinese students into a trust fund to insulate themselves against a future drop in enrollments from East Asia.

A few thoughts came to mind reading the article:

• on the one hand, the insurance seems quite cheap (less than 1 per cent of the amount insured).  Even if a year ago there weren’t debates –  as now in the US –  about possible government restrictions on China student visa numbers – the risk of something going wrong wouldn’t have seemed small (after all, even pandemics happen more than once in a hundred years, and wars have also been higher frequency than that).
• and, on the other, you have to therefore suppose that the contract is very tightly drawn, and it might well be difficult for the university to get a claim paid out.

It would also be interesting to have seen their analysis on the merits of paying a premium to an outside insurer as opposed to self-insuring.  The university concerned  appears to have an endowment of US$3.5 billion and a drop in Chinese student numbers doesn’t look like it could pose an existential threat to the institution as a whole.

And the policy seems unlikely to provide cover in the event that, say, the university president or a group of his/her senior academics were at some point to make a strong stand against the actions and policies of the People’s Republic of China.  That is something in the hands of the university and therefore almost certainly uninsurable.  If anything, one could imagine the insurance policy constraining their perceived freedom of action/speech.

But it also got me thinking about the compromised position of New Zealand universities.  Perhaps none of them is dependent on the China market for quite 15 per cent of their total revenue, although there will be individual departments and perhaps even faculties that will be at least that dependent.   In a new post, on why people on the left have been reluctant to support Anne-Marie Brady, I noticed this line from Paul Buchanan

The first, prevalent amongst academics, is concern about losing funding or research opportunities for publicly siding with her. The concern is obvious and acute in departments and institutes that receive PRC funding directly

Do we really have components of our public universities receiving direct funding from the PRC (Confucius Institutes aside, which are peripheral to the universities themselves)?  If so, surely such funding should be given more prominence, given the nature of the regime (scarcely benevolent and welcoming of scrutiny and criticism).

But even just in respect of student enrolments, the PRC market is clearly of considerable importance to the universities (and slightly far-fetched claims of increased penetration of the international student market are used to support Victoria University Vice-Chancellor – and China Council member – Grant Guilford’s bid to change the name of his institution).   Our universities are keen on lots of foreign undergraduate students for various reasons.  High numbers apparently help them in some of the mechanical international ranking schemes.   But the key driver is almost certainly the money.  Overseas students –  especially from non English-speaking backgrounds –  are quite expensive to support, but they can be charged full fees.  By contrast, the government caps both domestic student fees themselves, and limit the amount of direct support to universities in respect of those students (while, with gay abandon, offering interest-free student loans and fee-free entry to students themselves).  In a hugely distorted “market”, successive governments have set up the incentives that drove the universities further into exposure to the political whims of the PRC authorities.  Universities, in turn, were aided and abetted by the immigration policy provisions, that bundled-up work rights and qualification for post-study visas and residence points with study at a New Zealand institution.   In most fields, in most institutions, our universities simply aren’t so good (highly ranked) they’d attract large numbers on their own merits at full fees (although being a low wage Anglo country, presumably our fees are lower than those in some other countries).

The corruption of the system is double-edged.  There is the political dimension –  we are never likely to see a clarion call from our Vice-Chancellors opposing the repressive nature of the PRC regime, including the repression of academic freedom – such as it was – in China.  It seems unlikely they’d even speak up for, say, Anne-Marie Brady here –  certainly none have.  Once upon a time one might have looked to university vice-chancellors as among the eminent figures guarding and championing our traditions (for all the talk about academics as “critic and conscience”, a huge part of what they do is pass down the accumulated knowledge and wisdom, so that we don’t start anew each generation).  But not these days.  There are deals to be done –  connections with the PRC itself, even degree-granting programmes there –  and enrolment numbers to keep up.  Vice-Chancellors seem more like hawkers, than guardians and champions of our values.

But the other side of the corruption of the system relates to the pressure to pass people.  Those of us outside universities don’t see much of this directly, although occasional reports seep out.    But there was a Twitter thread the other day from an Australian economist, who teaches at the University of Queensland

One hears similar stories from time to time here (not necessarily specific to PRC students), and one can only assume they aren’t uncommon, (and that New Zealand universities are no purer, or their academics more resistant to pressure, than their Australian counterparts).

It is a very sad way to run a university system – at least if society expects anything more of universities than being degree-factories.   Rather than “critic and conscience” it has the feel of something more like corrupted exemplars of how off course our society has gone.

And thus there seems almost no chance that our universities –  or the Australian ones – will heed Peter Varghese’s advice (will his own even do so?).  Governments would have to take the issue seriously first, and that seems unlikely.    Putting aside some of the short-term profits as protection against a “rainy day” –  if the thugs in Beijing took a dislike to you – would probably immediately expose the problems in the financial standing of the universities and of our tertiary education system as a whole.  Better just to go along, get along, get the Vice-Chancellor on one or other of the pro-PRC propaganda bodies, pass the students, keep the contracts (with Beijing or Wellington), and keep supporting succesive governments in doing everything possible to avoid upsetting Beijing, to sacrifice the values of our society on the pyre of deals and donations.

But I was left wondering whether our own Export Credit Office –  a small intervention I’m deeply sceptical of –  would offer our universities the sort of insurance the University of Illinois was taking out.    They tout themselves as offering these services

NZEC can assist exporters to mitigate the effects of a buyer cancelling a contract or defaulting on its payments, as a consequence of commercial or political events beyond an exporter’s control.

And would we be better off if they did, or would the insurer just be even more keen on keeping the insured (the universities) in line?

In her writings, Anne-Marie Brady quite often introduces lines from Lenin, which appear to help shed some light on how the PRC operates.  As one reflects on our universities –  in particular – I’m reminded of the line that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope with which they’d later be hanged.   Perhaps one expects little of our “capitalists” –  businesses can prosper under any political regime (see Google worming its way back into China) – but universities were supposed to be better than that.  Governments share the blame, of course, but leaders of universities are moral agents, and should have their own responsibilities beyond just the income statement.