Early last month, the government published its Strategic Defence Policy Statement.   That was the one that caused a bit of a flurry because of the inclusion of the odd, rather mild, honest statement that appeared to that put noses out of joint among the tyrants of Beijing and their representatives and advocates (not all PRC citizens) in Wellington.

And that was so even though early on the document reminded us that

New Zealand continues to build a strong and resilient relationship with China. Defence and security cooperation with China has grown over recent years, supported by a range of visits, exchanges, and dialogues.

It isn’t clear what values or interests the People’s Republic of China and New Zealand would share.   We knew better 50 years ago when we didn’t do military exchanges and joint exercises with the Soviet Union.

The pandering goes on with talk of how “China is deeply integrated into the rules-based order” (one of those much-used but very ill-defined phrases that seems to bear little relationship to reality).

Moving along, the report gets a little more frank, but in repeating lines that are news to no one.    China is not  –  and shows no sign of or interest in becoming – a liberal democracy, and its “views on human rights and freedom of information…stand in contrast to those that prevail in New Zealand”.   The document notes also growing Chinese military power and a disregard for international fora in dealing with “the status of sovereignty claims” in “disputed areas of maritime Asia”.     There is, rather brief, reference to attempts to “disrupt and influence Western nations’ political systems from the inside”, although those comments aren’t specific to China.

And (in a statement of what one would have hoped would have been blindingly obvious) there is this

Developments in Europe and Asia have crystallised a sense that non-democratic and democratic systems are in strategic competition, and that not all major powers’ aspirations can be shaped in accordance with the rules-based order [whatever the government means by that], in the way that had been hoped until recently.

And yet, if this is partly in reference to China, what have the presidents of both the Labour and National parties been doing praising Xi Jinping and the contribution of the PRC?  There has been no sign of them recanting.

A little later on in the document, there are two paragraphs specifically about China.  They are purely descriptive, with not a word of disapproval to be found among the descriptions of China’s aggression in the South and East China Seas, the construction of military bases on artificial islands in contested waters.  Remarkably –  but no doubt pleasingly to both Beijing and our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade –  there is apparently no mention of Taiwan, a key potential flashpoint, at all.

You could perhaps read the document more charitably than I have done –  for example, hints of unease about Chinese activity in Antarctica –  but it is still a pretty anodyne document.  There is no explicit or outright criticism.   Even China’s major geopolitical initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative, is described in positive terms.

But Beijing didn’t like it

At a press conference in Beijing on Monday, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the country had taken note of the defence policy statement and “lodged stern representations with New Zealand on the wrong remarks it has made on China.”        …

“We urge New Zealand to view the relevant issue in an objective way, correct its wrong words and deeds and contribute more to the mutual trust and cooperation between our two countries.”

Quite telling that wording.  Not a matter, apparently, where reasonable people might disagree, but rather “wrong words” (and “deeds”) that need correcting.   New Zealand should abase itself.   And the PRC sometimes wonders why it doesn’t have more genuine friends….

The document itself is now rather old news.  But what struck me in the days and weeks after its release was that, anodyne as it was, it was made even weaker by the complete silence of the Prime Minister and senior Labour Party figures (and, for that matter, the Greens).  Labour is by far the largest component of the government, and not a peep has been heard from the Prime Minister (conveniently on leave when the policy statement was released).  But that is par for the course from the Prime Minister –  I wrote here about a speech she gave earlier in the year to the China Business Summit in Auckland.   There was no sign of any moral core to her views.   Not surprisingly, since her own party president has been in Bejing, since she became leader, praising Xi Jinping.   It is sickening.

Incidentally, for anyone inclined to look favourably on New Zealand First’s involvement in all this, I stumbled on an article on the PRC Embassy’s website about an event in Wellington a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the 91st anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army.  Among the speakers were our Defence Minister, Ron Mark, and our new Chief of Defence Force, Kevin Short.  Various other senior New Zealand officials also attended.  Neither man published the text of his remarks, but the Chinese Embassy reported them.

Here was Ron Mark

The New Zealand Minister of Defence Ron Mark extended his heartfelt congratulations on the 91st anniversary of the founding of the PLA and expressed his admiration for the contribution of the Chinese army towards safeguarding world peace. The Honourable Ron Mark noted that China is New Zealand’s strategic partner and that the relationship with China is one of New Zealand’s most important and valuable relations with foreign countries. Over the past 30 years since Royal New Zealand Navy frigates visited Shanghai in 1987, China-New Zealand military-to-military relations have continued to develop on the basis of openness and mutual respect.

What planet is the man on?  He’d probably have had a good word for the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe in 1938 as well.

As for the Air Marshal

Mr Short noted that over the past 91 years since its founding, the PLA has made tremendous contributions to China and the world.

A decades-long civil war, enabling one of the brutal and murderous regimes on the planet, and now  –  according to our own Strategic Defence Policy Statement

China’s military modernisation reflects its economic power and growing leadership ambitions. China’s growing military capabilities raise the costs of any potential internvetion against its interests and include stronger expeditionary capabilities, including a military presence in the Indian Ocean.  China has expanded its military and coastguard presence in disputed areas of maritime Asia. It has determined not to engage with an international tribunal ruling on the status of sovereignty claims.

Perhaps all that had slipped the Air Marshal’s mind when he made the kowtow before the PRC Ambassador, presumably with the approval of his Minister?

Distasteful as the PRC regime is, at least there was a bit more honesty in some of their reported remarks

In his speech, Defence Attaché Li Jingfeng stated that as socialism with Chinese characteristics entering a new era, the building of the PLA has also reached a new stage. With the deepening of defence and military reforms, the entire army adheres to the absolute leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and resolutely implements President Xi Jinping’s thought on building a strong military. By constantly advancing the policy of developing the military through political work, strengthening it through reform, and governing it according to law, the PLA’s combat effectiveness has been significantly enhanced

Against what external threat, other than those generated by the PRC’s own aggression, one has to wonder?

As the PRC Embassy reported it

The atmosphere at the reception was cordial and friendly. The participating New Zealand guests spoke highly of the achievements made by the Chinese armed forces and their contribution to world peace,

I guess we can take such propaganda with a pinch of salt, but it clearly wasn’t a remotely awkward occasion for such an expansionist power just a few weeks after that defence policy document had been released.  It should be a cause for shame among our ministers, officials and senior defence force officers.

And if I’m critical of our government and its officials, the Opposition is no better.  After all, they still have former PLA intelligence staffer Jian Yang –  the man who acknowledges he misrepresented his past to get into the country –  as one of the lesser lights of their parliamentary caucus.    Their leader was the man who, as a senior minister last year, signed New Zealand up to the Belt and Road Initiative, in a document full of nauseating and ingratiating rhetoric (next steps of which are due, in terms of the agreement, in the next six weeks).  Perhaps worse, when the government came out with its rather mild Strategic Defence Policy Statement, mostly just stating –  barely even criticising –  the blindingly obvious, Simon Bridges was all of a flutter.  The government couldn’t possibly say such things: it might upset Beijing.  There would be consequences he ominously warned.    Does the man have no respects for the values and systems of his own country at all?  Is he only interested in the perspective of a few businesses (including universities) that want better trade terms, never mind the character of the regime they pander to?  Never, ever, apparently must a disrespectful word be uttered.

There have been a few interesting articles around from abroad in recent weeks that are worth reading.  Perhaps most directly salient was a substantial piece in the Australian magazine The Monthly by John Garnaut, formerly a senior Fairfax journalist (and long-term China correspondent), more latterly an adviser to the Australian government.    His article is on the challenge PRC influence strategies pose in many countries –  in Asia, the Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

Garnaut writes

The CCP’s international influence system is a complex, subtle and deeply institutionalised set of inducements and threats designed to shape the way outsiders talk, think and behave. The modus operandi is to offer privileged access, build personal rapport and reward those who deliver. It seeks common interests and cultivates relationships of dependency with chosen partners. The Party uses overt propaganda and diplomacy, quasi-covert fronts and proxies, and covert operations to frame debates, manage perceptions, and tilt the political and strategic landscape to its advantage.

Beyond the foundational assumption of a single, civilisational “China”, the specific demands of United Front work are framed by permutations of three narratives: China is inherently peaceful and beneficent, the growth of Chinese power is inexorable, and China is vengeful and dangerous if provoked.

These narratives are internally contradictory but consistent over time. The first two are delivered openly by leaders, diplomats and state propaganda. The third is usually delivered via back channels with plausibly deniable connections to the state: PLA “hawks”, specialist military hardware websites, academic forums, personal meetings with top leaders, editorials in the Global Times. Together, this messaging orchestra is designed to condition audiences into believing that the rewards are great, resistance is futile, and outright opposition may be suicidal.

The meta-narrative of Beijing’s ever-growing power is the drumbeat that accompanies China’s policies of territorial coercion across its southern and eastern seas. It is the subtext that persuades foreign governments to remain silent as Beijing abandons restraint in the restive borderlands of Tibet and Xinjiang. It is also the incentive for economic beneficiaries to avoid seeing, or to rationalise, or to even actively support the Party’s efforts to degrade the values and institutions of civil society.

That final sentence sounds a great deal like the New Zealand situation.

But Garnaut isn’t just writing about distant places like New Zealand and Australia.  Of Taiwan he writes

In May I attended a closed-door forum hosted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy that was publicly opened by the deputy foreign minister, François Chih-Chung Wu. He set aside diplomatic platitudes to issue this plea for international help:

“In Taiwan, and in countries elsewhere, China moves from soft power to sharp power, and then to hard power. And it is becoming more brazen every day … In other countries, this process may begin with a Confucius Institute, scholarships, grants, but the next thing you know you must self-censor discussions China considers sensitive … In the face of this authoritarian onslaught of China’s misinformation, cyber hacking, bribery, economic coercion, theft of technology, and intrusion in internal politics – Taiwan is crucial. If it can hold on, other democracies will be able to hold on. But if it fails, there will be no security for the democratic governments of the world.”

He also writes about the Singaporean government’s expulsion last year of a resident Chinese-born US citizen, a reasonably prominent academic, for being an “agent of influence for a foreign country”.     Garnaut writes

What is striking about this official statement is that it makes detailed allegations relating to a form of espionage that sits a long way from the traditional Western counterintelligence agenda. The intelligence officers who were allegedly behind this operation were not stealing secrets. And nor were they aiming to directly control any policy lever. Rather, they were allegedly planting or nurturing a series of words and ideas in order to tilt the strategic decision-making landscape in a particular direction. They didn’t want to force Singaporean policy makers to make decisions in their favour. Rather, they wanted to condition policy makers to make such decisions of their own volition.

He quotes a recent speech from a retired top Singaporean diplomat (reprinted in the government-managed media in Singapore)

“China does not just want you to comply with its wishes. Far more fundamentally, it wants you to think in such a way that you will of your own volition do what it wants without being told. It’s a form of psychological manipulation.”

As I read that, it brought to mind Beijing’s description of the New Zealand defence document: “wrong words”.

Garnaut reports his own experiences, and the attempts of the regime to suborn his reporting

At first, my exposure to United Front work was all about inducements, with an occasional warning to keep me on my toes. I was offered red envelopes, neatly packed with US$100 bills. And sounded out for a lucrative “consultancy” arrangement with a Hong Kong bank. In one encounter, I was offered air tickets, hotel accommodation, a five-star family holiday, a job, and a gift bag containing bottles of Bordeaux wine valued at up to US$2000 each. These were all reciprocity traps, to be avoided at all costs. Gradually, over time, the ratio of carrots to sticks was inverted.

Garnaut was recently the subject of legal action by one extremely wealthy PRC resident in Australia,  put out by his open and sceptical reporting.

Another recent piece people might like to read was piece by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, long-serving (and then China-resident) journalist, and currently visiting fellow at the (German) Mercator Institute for China Studies, on some of the ideas, values, and language (often ancient) that seem to guide PRC actions today, including around the United Front activities  (“Imperial philosophy meets Marxist orthodoxy in Beijing’s global ambitions”).

In one quote, resonant of Beijing’s descriptions of the defence policy document,

A direct consequence of this worldview is that, from the party’s point of view, China’s sovereignty applies everywhere in the world. The party-state reserves for itself the right to negate values such as freedom of speech anywhere if it feels these challenge its sovereignty.

This stance is often expressed in terse demands to “outsiders” to apologize for getting things “wrong,” such as classifying Taiwan as a nation, or referencing the Dalai Lama in an advertisement, as happened recently to western airlines, hotels and car companies. These demands are increasingly coupled to direct threat to trade, in a classic example of jimi.

Rarely is the rationale behind the demand spelled out, but it was, in January, in an article in Global Times. The article responded to a previous New York Times article that documented how Chinese diplomats and soccer officials were interfering in political and speech freedoms in Germany. (That article was by this author.)

Efforts in Germany to support the rights of Tibetans were not a question of free speech, wrote Zhang Yi in Global Times: “What the author fails to understand is that the Tibet question is a matter of Chinese sovereignty; the Tibetan separatists aimed at splitting China and they should not use freedom of speech as an excuse,” Zhang wrote.

In that quote the underpinnings of the democratic order are removed and the intrinsic value of free speech negated everywhere. This isn’t simply change. This is revolution, in the sense of overturning. While the Global Times is not the party or government, the sovereignty argument expressed by Zhang cleaves to official thinking.

Towards the end of her paper, Tetlow notes

How can an anti-democratic, universalist China be accommodated and managed?

Firstly, a mental reset is needed. In a time of system competition it is of utmost importance to understand one’s competitor. Chinese officials and official commentators often talk about “changing and improving” global governance – pluralist societies must assume they mean to do it. Open societies must stop seeing the People’s Republic of China as a paler copy of themselves, merely lagging in terms of democratic modernity. Such teleology is unjustified, barring major political change in China.

By seeing the threads that the party is picking from the past and weaving into the future, we see China as it is – human yet totalitarian, strong yet weak, defensive yet aggressive, and ultimately a great challenge to democratic nations. When China calls for a tianxia-esque, civilizational system such as the “commonwealth of human destiny,” we must listen carefully, analyze closely the historical context and development of the term, identify the techniques used to achieve it, and assume party leaders mean to implement it if they can.

And what of the vaunted Belt and Road Initiative, that local taxpayer-funded PR outfits like the China Council and the Asia New Zealand Foundation are constantly keen to talk up (and on which the New Zealand government soon has to make decisions)?  I noticed a new short piece out of a US think-tank suggesting that all might not be well with the programme even inside the PRC.

the PRC’s policymaking apparatus appears to have already responded to concerns of BRI overreach by adjusting the scale of lending to limit possible financial risk. BRI lending by major PRC banks has dropped by 89% since 2015, and lending by commercial banks—who are dealing with their own financial issues domestically—has ceased almost entirely. Policy banks have also scaled back, despite their status as arms of PRC government policy.

What are these concerns?

On July 20, Sun Wenguang, a retired professor of physics at Shandong University, penned an open letter criticizing China for “offering almost CNY 400 billion in aid to 166 countries, and sending 600,000 aid workers” (Canyuwang, July 20). On August 1, as he expanded on his concerns in an interview with the US-based Voice of America, police forced their way into Sun’s apartment. As he was taken away, Sun could be heard saying, “Listen to what I say, is it wrong? Regular people are poor, let’s not throw our money away in Africa … throwing money around like this doesn’t do any good for our country or our society.” (VOA Youtube, August 2)

Ah, the character of the regime our politicians and officials pander to…..

As the author notes

Although a Western observer might dismiss a few professors’ unhappiness with the BRI as ivory tower grumbling, PRC academic critiques are worth noting, since outspoken academics are often the channel through which other PRC societal elites communicate their dissatisfaction with the CCP.

And draws atttention to one much-better-connected leading academic’s recent essay.

Although Sun has long been a government gadfly, he is also long retired, and resides far from the center of power in Beijing. But similar criticisms have found voice much closer to the corridors of power. On July 24, Xu Zhangrun (许章润), a professor at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University, published an extraordinary essay entitled “Imminent Fears, Imminent Hopes” (我们当下的恐惧与期待). Among many other criticisms, Xu excoriates Xi’s government for its profligacy abroad, saying:

At the recent China-Arab States Cooperation Forum [on 10 July 2018], [Xi Jinping] announced that twenty billion US dollars would be made available for ‘Dedicated Reconstruction Projects’ in the Arab world, adding that [China] will investigate offering a further one billion yuan to support social stability efforts in the [Persian Gulf]. Everyone knows full well that the Gulf States are literally oozing with wealth. Why is China, a country with over one hundred million people who are still living below the poverty line, playing at being the flashy big-spender? (China Heritage, August 1)

Xu Zhungrun’s essay is a fascinating read (the readily available, and extensively quoted, translation was done by the Australian China scholar living in the Wairarapa).   As the translator notes in his introduction

On 24 July 2018, Xu published a lengthy online critique of China’s present political and social dilemmas. In issuing his Jeremiad, Xu, who is something of a latter-day rú 儒, locates himself in the Grand Tradition by effectively addressing a Memorial to the Throne, 諫言 or 上書. Given the relentless police repression and intensifying ideological clamp-down in Xi Jinping’s China, this is a daring act of ‘remonstrance’ 諫勸.

The professor doesn’t pull his punches

Over-investment in international aid may well result in deprivations at home. It is said that China is now the world’s largest source of international aid; its cash-splashes are counted in billions or tens of billions of dollars. For a developing country with a large population many of whom still live in a pre-modern economy, such behaviour is outrageously disproportionate. Such policies are born of a ‘Vanity Politics’; they reflect the flashy showmanship of the boastful and they are odious. The nation’s wealth — including China’s three trillion dollars in foreign reserves — has been accumulated over the past four decades using the blood and sweat of working people, in fact, it has actually been built up as a result of successive policies and countless struggles dating from the time of the Self-Strengthening Movement [launched during the Tongzhi Restoration during the 1860s when, following its defeat in the Second Opium War, the court of the Qing-dynasty adopted the first modernising reform agenda in Chinese history. By saying this Xu, to an extent, indicates that he does not completely embrace the Communist narrative or its soteriology]. How can this wealth be squandered so heedlessly?

The era of fast-paced economic growth will come to an end; how can such wanton generosity be tolerated — a generosity which, in many ways, replicates [the vainglorious Maoist-era policies when China boasted that it was the centre of world revolution to] ‘Support Asia-Africa-Latin America’ [which meant that an impoverished China was generously giving aid to Third World countries in an effort to gain political advantage and counter the influence both of the American imperialists and the Soviet revisionists] that led to countless millions of Chinese being forced to tighten their belts simply to survive, and which even saw the corpses of those who had starved to death scattered in the fields.

Recall that New Zealand too –  far richer than China per capita –  is a recipient of this lavish PRC “foreign aid” –  paying for language teaching assistance in numerous of our state schools,  all encouraged by our government at the expense of poor Chinese.

Average Chinese are most frequently offended by the way the state scatters large sums of money through international aid to little or no benefit. China is still slowly making its way up the steep slope of development. In terms both of basic infrastructure and social facilities, as well as in regard to people’s ability to access welfare, we are confronting massive problems; our burden is great and the road ahead leads far into the distance. And I make this point without even mentioning the crisis in aged care, or issues related to employment opportunities and education.

Or

Even the most commonplace international meeting organised in China involves extraordinary levels of expense. There is no regard for budgets; fiscal waste and the heedless loss of human work hours is considerable. Such activities are content-free and superficial. It’s all about pursuing ‘Vanity Politics’ not ‘Practical Politics’, let alone ‘Hard-edged Politics’. Such events have nothing to do with the so-called ‘venerable traditional of warmth and hospitality demonstrated by the Chinese people from ancient times’; only the most vain and self-serving [leaders and bureaucrats like to] indulge in such things. If foreigners were to copy what we ar constantly doing here, then the VIP-filled headquarters of the United Nations in New York would be on police lock-down 24/7, and the headquarters of the numerous international organisations based in Geneva and Paris would perforce have to stage nightly fireworks displays with their personnel expected to be decked out in all their finery all the time.

One might think of cocktails to celebrate the 91st anniversary of the PLA.  But more tellingly one might think of PRC gifts to PNG (a fancy convention centre and a new six lane highway for example) to enable it to host APEC this year.

Or

An emergency brake must be applied to the unfolding Personality Cult. Who would have thought that, after four decades of Reforms and the Open Door, our Sacred Land would once more witness a Personality Cult? The Party media is going to extreme lengths to create a new Idol, and in the process it is offering up to the world an image of China as Modern Totalitarianism. Portraits of the Leader are hoisted on high throughout the Land, as though they are possessed of some Spiritual Mana. This only adds to all the absurdity. And then, on top of that, the speeches of That Official — things previously merely to be recorded by secretaries in a pro forma bureaucratic manner — are now painstakingly collected in finely bound editions printed in vast quantities and handed out free throughout the world. The profligate waste of paper alone is enough to make you shake your head in disbelief.

Didn’t former Labour leader Phil Goff pay for a large chunk of his mayoral campaign auctioning off collected works of Xi Jinping, to PRC-based donors?

It is a bracing read, and one can wonder at the likely fate of the courageous author.

Meanwhile, our Prime Minister –  and her Opposition counterpart – refuse ever to utter a critical word about the regime, or what it represents here  (Jian Yang, the infiltration of Chinese community groups, control of the Chinese language media), abroad (South and East China Sea), or back home.    The most egregious recent example is around the mass concentration camp (actual detention, and extreme surveillance for those not detained) in Xinjiang.    What would it take for Jacinda Ardern, Simon Bridges, Winston Peters, Ron Mark, James Shaw, Marama Davidson to speak up and speak out.   Does nothing but a dollar matter in their world nowadays?  It looks a lot like civilisational decadence taken to whole new levels.  So well-schooled it doesn’t even occur to them to speak up.     Another cocktail party perhaps?  Pass the canapes, and quietly ignore the great evil Beijing and the CCP are responsible for –  not just in decades past, but (in more refined, and perhaps unnerving) forms right now.

These were parties that once prided themselves on standing against (variously) apartheid South Africa, French nuclear testing, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, mass murder in Cambodia or Rwanda, and so on.  Is there anything left they believe in enough, or care about enough, to speak up, take a stand, or do something?

 

 

The (generally subservient, or even servile) relations between New Zealand and the People’s Republic of China have been back in the news this week.  It isn’t as if there have been material new developments –  except perhaps confirmation that Winston Peters (who won’t tell New Zealanders, let alone the PRC, what his government thinks of the PRC’s latest steps in militarising artificial islands illegally created in the South China Sea) is a fully paid up member of the “never ever upset Beijing” establishment.

The news was mostly just a couple of reports: testimony at a US Congressional commission (and the subsequent train wreck of the radio interview of one of those testifying) and the publication of material from a Canadian security services academic conference.  In both cases, perhaps it was newsworthy that such events were taking place abroad, and that New Zealand’s experience was being aired more widely.   But both lots of material seemed to draw entirely from material already in the public domain, including notably Professor Anne-Marie Brady’s Magic Weapons paper.  The Canadian material is all published under Chatham House rules –  in this case, no ascription of authorship at all – but when I read the material on New Zealand it was so similar to Brady’s other published material, that I just assumed she was the author.

As I noted the other day, in Radio New Zealand’s interview with him, former CIA analyst Peter Mattis, one of those who testified before the Congressional commission, performed really badly.    He just didn’t know the material, and appears to know nothing about New Zealand beyond what he had read in Brady’s paper.     Unsurprisingly some of the more vocal defenders of the “nothing to see here” club were pretty exuberant.  Here was the Executive Director for the (taxpayer-funded) New Zealand China Council

This interview reveals fully the appalling use of innuendo and conspiracy theory in the “debate” about Chinese influence. Well done @GuyonEspiner @NZMorningReport for exposing it! @nzchinacouncil

But, as I outlined in my post on Monday, none of what Mattis referred to in his testimony –  or indeed of the activities Anne-Marie Brady has written about has been refuted.   Nothing.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister confirmed her membership of the “nothing to see hear” club,  claiming that none of the Five Eyes countries had raised issues with her (as distinct from raising them with diplomats and senior public servants?) and answering questions thus

When asked what specifically was being done to review the country’s safeguards she said the Government made “independent decisions based on evidence and the best option for New Zealand”.

“For example, there is a national security test in our law governing space and high altitude activities.

“Parliament has regulated for national interests in the telecommunications area [TICSA]. We have strong provisions to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism.”

Which gets to the issue hardly at all –  no doubt deliberately.

Over the course of the week, I found one interesting article commenting on these issues, from an American security expert who lives in New Zealand, former academic Paul Buchanan.  He notes

The impact of Chinese influence operations has been the subject of considerable discussion in Australia, to the point that politicians have been forced to resign because of undisclosed ties to Chinese interests and intelligence agencies have advised against doing business with certain Chinese-backed agencies. As usual, the NZ political class and corporate media were slow to react to pointed warnings that similar activities were happening here

and

unlike the US and Australia, NZ politicians are not particularly interested in digging into the nature and extent of Chinese influence on the party system and government policy. This, in spite of the “outing” of a former Chinese military intelligence instructor and academic as a National MP and the presence of well-heeled Chinese amongst the donor ranks of both National and Labour, the close association of operatives from both parties with Chinese interests, and the placement of well-known and influential NZers ….. in comfortable sinecures on Chinese linked boards, trusts and companies

Buchanan thinks these matters are worth investigation, but notes that

….the more interesting issue is why, fully knowing that the Chinese are using influence operations for purposes of State that go beyond international friendship or business ties, do so many prominent New Zealanders accept their money and/or positions on front organisations? Is the problem not so much what the Chinese do as as a rising great power trying to enlarge its sphere of influence as it is the willingness of so-called honourable Kiwis to prostitute themselves for the Chinese cause?

There wasn’t anything like the same willingness to associate with causes of the Soviet Union, arguably a less repressive and less aggressively expansionist power than the PRC –  and certainly less active in the political life of countries such as New Zealand and Australia.

Buchanan is keen to stick up for the current New Zealand government, suggesting that the Peter Mattis testimony (see above) had attempted to suggest the current government was particularly bad (which wasn’t the way I read it, and certainly isn’t the thrust of Professor Brady’s paper, which came out before the election).

Let’s be very clear: for the previous nine years National was in power, the deepening of Chinese influence was abided, if not encouraged by a Key government obsessed with trade ties and filling the coffers of its agrarian export voting base. It was National that ignored the early warnings of Chinese machinations in the political system and corporate networks, and it was Chinese money that flowed most copiously to National and its candidates. It is not an exaggeration to say that Chinese interests prefer National over Labour and have and continue to reward National for its obsequiousness when it comes to promoting policies friendly to Chinese economic interests.

and

Labour may have the likes of Raymond H[u]o in its ranks and some dubious Chinese businessmen among its supporters, but it comes nowhere close to National when it comes to sucking up to the Chinese. That is why Jian Yang is still an MP, and that is why we will never hear a peep from the Tories about the dark side of Chinese influence operations. For its part, Labour would be well-advised to see the writing on the wall now that the issue of Chinese “soft” subversion has become a focal point for Western democracies.

As for what Labour (and New Zealand First) will be like in government, it is still early days.  But, at present, it is hard to put any daylight betweeen the approaches of National and Labour.  No doubt that is welcome to the MFAT officials and the business interests that need to keep things sweet with Beijing, and local party officials who need to keep up the fundraising.  But it is as if they are happy for New Zealand to be almost a vassal state, corrupting our own historical beliefs and values in the process.

Thus, it is fine to say that Jian Yang reveals problems in National.  And isn’t it a disgrace that not a single National MP, present or past, has been willing to stand up, speak out and say that is simply unacceptable to have a former PRC military intelligence official, former (?) member of the Chinese Communist Party, in our Parliament?  But…….not a word on the subject has been heard from anyone in the Labour Party either.  By your silence Prime Minister –  and all your senior colleagues –  you too become just as complicit.  All else equal, it should have been easier for people in the political opposition to speak out than for someone in Jian Yang’s own party (for some of his own party people there is more at stake, including perhaps a list ranking).  But not a word.

And, of course, National makes no effort to call out Raymond Huo, or Labour’s use of a Xi Jinping slogan as part of their advertising campaign last year.    Once we expected higher standards than this from our members of Parliament.  But now, it seems, there are deals to be done, campaigns to finance, and so on.   And so the presidents of both major political parties can laud a tyrannical expansionist regime which, not incidentially, brutally suppresses its own people (as just another example, this article from the latest Economist.)   It wouldn’t have happened (and rightly so) with apartheid South Africa, with the Soviet Union –  or perhaps these days even with US political parties.

Just a few weeks ago, it was that denizen of the centre-left, Hillary Clinton, who was highlighting the risks in her speech in Auckland.  To deafening silence from our own centre-left government.

I don’t suppose any of this reluctance has anything to do with illusions about the nature of the regime.   Our political leaders know about the near-complete suppression of free speech, the prison camp that Xinjiang has become, about suppression of freedom of worship, and about decades of forced abortions.   They know about the PRC’s aggressive and illegal expansionism in the South China Sea, and its increasing intimidation of free, democratic and prosperous Taiwan.  They know about the (in many cases) successful attempts to corrupt political systems in various places around South Asia.  And they know about the activities, and strategies, of PRC authorities in countries like New Zealand, Australia, and Canada (as only three of many) to exert control over ethnic Chinese groupings, including Chinese language media.  They know the PRC now takes the view that ethnic Chinese abroad –  even citizens of other countries –  are expected to work in the interests of Beijing, and are at times coerced to do so (imagine if the British government acted thus among those of us of British descent in New Zealand).   They know our schools (my daughter’s high school among them) and universities are taking money from the PRC regime, on its terms.

But, knowing all this, they just don’t seem to care.  Or if, in some back recess of the brain there is some sense in which they vaguely lament all this, it doesn’t motivate them to do anything about it, or even to have an honest and open conversation engaging New Zealanders.  It is just a corrupted system.

There is a lot of focus at present in Australia –  a country facing very similar issues, but at least with an active and open political debate (including in the Labor Party) as to how best to deal with them –  on legislative changes designed to combat (mostly) PRC influence.   Perhaps there is a case for some legislative initiatives here (eg around former ministers taking up roles serving foreign governments, or organisations controlled by foreign governments), but –  and this comes back to Paul Buchanan’s point –  I suspect the bigger issues aren’t legislative but attitudinal.    On both sides of politics.

Jian Yang would be out of Parliament tomorrow if Simon Bridges and his National colleagues had an ounce of decency on these sorts of issues (and if, somehow, Jian Yang was resistant, at least he’d be an isolated backbencher, out of caucus for the rest of the term).   Jian Yang would be explaining himself to the English language media if there were an ounce of decency and respect for standards in public life.

Confucius Institutes’ activities could be banned from our state schools if either main party actually cared. Universities, supposedly bastions of free speech. could –  as some overseas have done –  close their Confucius Institutes –  but most have made themselves quite dependent on the flow of PRC students.

Ministers and senior Opposition figures could openly lament the aggressive expansionist appraoch of the PRC in the South and East China Seas.  Closer to home, they could ensure they avoid United Front controlled organisations, and speak out for a diverse Chinese language media market.  And so on.

But, instead, they seem terrified. If they did any of that there might not be an upgrade to the preferential trade agreement between New Zealand and China.  And party fundraising might get quite a bit harder.  Some New Zealand exporters might find more technical roadblocks in their path, as some Australian firms have been recently.

This isn’t the approach of a political system that has retained any self-respect whatever.  It is sad to watch, and shaming that these people represent us.  It is, purely and simply, appeasement at work.   As if nothing can be done, and nothing should be done.  Worse than Neville Chamberlain on my reading, because so much here seems to be just about the economic dimensions.

Taking a stand would, most likely, have a short-term cost.  But China does not, and never has, determined our material living standards or those of Australia.  We –  our resources, our people, our institutions –  determine that.  (It isn’t even as if the PRC is one of the economic success stories of Asia –  at best a middle income country, in a region of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore.)    If you have a business that is heavily reliant on the PRC –  our universities (basically SOEs) and some tourism operators mostly – you might take a hit.  But, as the old saying goes, when you dine with the devil you need a long spoon.  More specifically, you knew the sort of regime you were dealing with, and you dealt anyway.  It isn’t clear why the rest of us need to be sold-out, or have our values ignored, to serve your particular business interest.  It is one of the (many) downsides of bilateral trade agreements that it encourages ministers to put values to one side, or even a clear assessment of longer-term foreign policy threats, in the interests of corporate interests wanting to increase profits now.

Incidentally, I also doubt that changes to electoral donations laws are very relevant here, Unlike Australia, we already have laws preventing large foreign donations (except, for example, large ones such as those to Phil Goff’s campaign through auctions).  And many of the issues of real concern in Australia relate to very large donations by relatively new Australian citizens of PRC origins.  Unless one wants to move to exclusively state funding of political parties (and I certainly don’t) you can’t pass laws to stop people giving to a party on the basis of the policies such a party professes and practices –  however pernicious such policies might be.  Rather, it comes back to attitudes and to leadership.  Whatever ongoing diplomatic relations –  correct but formal –  our governments need to have with those of the PRC –  there can be no reason for party Presidents to be praising such a dreadful regime.  Perhaps we should revert to the practices of decades past where MPs and party leaders had little or no involvement in, or knowledge of, party fundraising.  And perhaps party leaderships needs the courage to turn down donations when the motives appear questionable.   Would it come at a cost?  Most probably it would, at least in the short term.  But, in a sense, the only real test of a system’s integrity (or that of an individual) is when they are willing to pay a price for what they believe.

Finally, this weekend marks the 29th anniversary of the massacre, by PRC authorities, of hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of unarmed students in and around Tiananmen Square.  The anniversary will go unmarked, and unremarked on, in the PRC of course.  That is the sort of regime our governments and business leaders defend.

This was how National MP Jian Yang alluded to these events in his maiden speech in Parliament

In April 1989 a great opportunity was opened up for me when I received a scholarship from the Johns Hopkins University in America. However, in the weeks following, student demonstrations swept China. The Chinese Government’s policy change afterwards prevented me from leaving to study in the United States.

Perhaps this weekend some journalists could invite him to flesh out his remarks.  An openly critical comment on the PRC –  who embassy he seems to remain very close to –  would certainly be a first.  A refusal to even engage –  by an MP paid and elected by all New Zealanders –  is, of course, more likely.  Perhaps they could also ask Labour MP, Raymond Huo –  also an adult in the PRC in 1989, now chair of the New Zealand Parliament’s Justice Committee – for his take on the events of 4 June 1989, and the sort of regime/Party that undertook such actions and now forbids its own people to even discuss them.   It isn’t as if either MP is a Cabinet minister.  But perhaps speaking out would interrupt the flow of party donations, upset some people doing business in China.  One often reads of PRC authorities using threats to family back in China to keep ethnic Chinese overseas in line.  If that sort of constraint exists in either case, an MP subject to such pressure might have our sympathy, but clearly would not be free to fulfil his duties to New Zealanders.