Eamon de Valera, Prime Minister of Ireland, visited the German Embassy in Dublin on 3 May 1945, to pay his condolences to the Ambassador on the death of Hitler. He apparently justified it afterwards on grounds of diplomatic protocol, but it reinforced ever afterwards impressions that de Valera had been sympathetic to the Nazis.

Yesterday was the national day of the People’s Republic of China, marking the formation in 1949 of the Chinese Communist Party government. Various people have been highlighting photographs that have appeared in the Chinese-language media show National MP Jian Yang at the Chinese Embassy’s celebratory function, posing with Ambassador, the embassy counsellor, and the military attache.

and

(the latter tweet including a link to some further offshore commentary on the New Zealand situation).

Perhaps protocol more or less requires that, for example, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and assorted MFAT staffers attend national day celebrations. It is a part of normal state-to-state relationships. But there is no such obligation on obscure government backbenchers, and certainly no reason for such people to allow themselves to be photographed happily with the leading representatives in New Zealand of such a vile regime. A not unreasonable conclusion might be that Dr Yang is really rather sympathetic to, and supportive of, the PRC regime. Perhaps he just takes the view that what is in Beijing’s interests is, somehow, also in the interests of New Zealanders? Either way, with a (belatedly) self-acknowledged background like his, he shouldn’t be in our Parliament. The National Party should be ashamed to have him in its parliamentary caucus. Should be, but presumably isn’t. There is, after all, no sign that the whips have told him to lie low (and not, for example, be photographed with representatives of the PRC regime).

But, convinced as I am that Yang shouldn’t be in our Parliament – even if, as may well be the case, he has done nothing illegal – in a way, his conduct doesn’t seem out-of-step with that of our professional diplomats; neutral public servants one might hope.

The government-sponsored China Council was out openly celebrating 69 years since the Communist revolutionary victory.

And they were retweeting the enthusiasm of the New Zealand consulate in Chengdu

(note the exclamation mark. Is 68 years of a brutal murderous regime something to celebrate?)

And then somehow I stumbled on the Twitter account of the New Zealand Consul-General in Shanghai. Her tweet managed two exclamation marks.

She describes herself as “Addicted to China. From the government (MFAT) and here to help.”

I guess I can understand a passion of things Chinese, for the culture and history, but “addicted to China” doesn’t exactly suggest the sort of calm dispassion we might hope for from our senior diplomats – in dealing with a friendly country with whom we share values, let alone a brutal regime that appears to directly interfere in the New Zealand political process, and in entities and media outlets serving New Zealand (ethnic Chinese) citizens.

It is as if our entire establishment can’t bring itself to acknowledge the nature of a regime which has gone from one horror to another over the decades, barely regretting or apologising for any of them, and which now – richer and stronger than it was before, if a distinct economic laggard even in the region – poses real and new threats to its own people – the ramping up of surveillance for example – to regional stability, and to countries (including New Zealand) with a significant population of Chinese-born people. Are MFAT and the New Zealand China Council – and the New Zealand government – untroubled by any of this? Perhaps in 1938 their predecessors would have been celebrating the anniversary of the Nazi accession to power, all the while playing up the “trade opportunities”, and quietly observing that it wouldn’t do to upset the party-state?

It is a regime that is evil epitomised for this generation. Not, to be sure, North Korea and yet (a) chief protector of that evil regime, and (b) much more of threat to many more people and countries than North Korea is ever likely to be. And yet National MPs happily celebrate another anniversary of the evil. And quite probably Labour MPs do too, and would were they to form a government.

But it does prompt the question, where is the Green Party in all this?. I’m not a natural Green Party supporter and could not ever imagine voting for them. But over the years I’ve had a certain respect for them, and some of their MPs, when they’ve stood up against oppression, against surveillance, against threats to civil liberties. I was, perhaps a little strangely, an admirer of Keith Locke on this score. But on these issue – whether the specifics of Jian Yang, or the wider issues of PRC meddling- just total silence from the Greens. I’m not sure I really understand why. They don’t represent big and established business interests, and they don’t – as I understand it – have any track record of being heavily reliant on questionable fundraising. If there was ever a time to act as some sort of moral conscience, surely this is one of those?

I’ve found it a little hard to take too seriously earnest calls in the US for inquiries into Russian attempted interference in the US election last year (and am well aware of plenty of instances where the US has interfered in the elections of other countries). But if there is a case for such investigations in the US – and I think there probably is, even though Russia is a much inferior power to the US – how much stronger is the case here for a serious inquiry into the sorts of claims, and evidence, Professor Brady has outlined in her paper.

And there are simpler questions still that should be put to Dr Yang, whether by the National Party itself, or by the media. For example, can you name – say – three occasions on which, since you were elected to Parliament, you have disagreed with a policy stance taken by the PRC, and where you have spoken out clearly in defence of New Zealand interests and values? Shouldn’t be that hard. After all, South China Sea adventurism is in flagrant breach of international law. And the growth of the surveillance state in China under Xi Jinping isn’t exactly consistent with the sort of values the National Party proclaims. Or the increasing uses of “big data” highlighted in this article in the Financial Times today. Or one might ask how differently he sees the PRC being from, say, the Soviet Union or (the much shorter-lived) Nazi Germany – the latter being particularly active among the ethnic German populations in neighbouring countries in the 1930s. Does he look forward to a day when freedom of speech, freedom of religion and multi-party democracy prevails on the mainland – as it does, say, in Taiwan? As I say, it shouldn’t be hard to get clear and straightforward answers from someone who has genuinely abandoned his party (and military/intelligence) past.

Finally, while Dr Yang, MFAT, and assorted official China-promoters in New Zealand are celebrating 68 years of evil, there is this alternative perspective from Hong Kong, where people more readily appreciate the evil, the threat, that the PRC now represents.

I’m not suggesting that our government should deliberately go out of its way to upset the regime. And normal state-to-state relations (as we had in later years with the Soviet Union) are to be expected. But our governments – our diplomats – are supposed to be there to serve the interests, and values of New Zealanders. And that means, among other things, recognising and acknowledging the dreadful character of the regime they are dealing with. Hermann Goering was known to throw a good party too. Nuremberg rallies were, reportedly, spectacular.

In the few weeks since the Financial Times/Newsroom story about Jian Yang broke and, independently, Professor Anne-Marie Brady’s conference paper on the extent of People’s Republic of China influence-seeking activities in New Zealand became available I’ve been doing a bit of reading around the issues. As far as I can tell, overseas experts appear to see Professor Brady’s paper as portraying a situation in New Zealand that is more extreme than (and more successful?), but consistent with the direction of, PRC activities in a range of other countries. Her paper seems to have attracted quite a lot of interest abroad, even as our own politicians (in particular) and media have largely overlooked the apparently serious issues she raises. The approach of successive governments, but perhaps particularly the most recent one, appears to closely resemble “never, ever, say anything to offend Beijing”.

In the course of reading around the issue, I found a couple of interesting papers on the MFAT website. The first, Opening doors to China: New Zealand’s 2015 Vision, was released in 2012. It is currently described as

The NZ Inc China Strategy maps the possibilities for the relationship on a 10-15 year horizon.

The document is totally consistent with the relentlessly upbeat and deferential tone that seems to characterise the New Zealand government’s approach to China. It begins with a Foreword from the then Prime Minister John Key.

With its talk of “centralised plans” it seems strangely apt for China.

The NZ Inc China Strategy is the second in the Government’s series of centralised plans – developed to strengthen our economic, political and security relationships with countries and regions, and to encourage people-to-people links and two-way investment.

He continues, in a paragraph that rather gives the game away.

Our strategy for China starts from an explicit recognition that an excellent political relationship is the foundation upon which everything else must be built. We can’t engage with China just on the trading front – we need to work across all sectors to build the range of links that will enhance our understanding and familiarity with one another.

That isn’t how normal countries, and firms in them, typically operate. Trade is, largely, a firm to firm matter, and governments set overarching standards and (largely) stand back. But not with China: that compliant political relationship really seems to matter.

Even the economics seem shonky, or (deliberately?) naïve.

Knowledge is in fact set to be a key driver of our rapidly growing relationship. Clearly it is a two-way street – we want to work with China to drive forward science and technology linkages, and we want to exploit the fruits of that collaboration to the commercial advantage of both countries.

But China isn’t at the leading-edge of technological innovation – thus, it is still a relatively poor middle income country – and while it has had a strong interest in acquiring western technology, by legal means or otherwise (so much so that research agreements between western universities and Chinese interests are raising increasing concerns), there is considerably less evidence of a “two-way street”.

Key concludes

The New Zealand Inc China strategy articulates the vision of a relationship with China that stimulates New Zealand’s innovation, learning and economic growth.

I won’t blame the New Zealand-China relationship for the lack of any productivity growth at all in New Zealand for the last five years. But perhaps we could just say that the claimed benefits to the wider New Zealand economy are still somewhat hard to identify.

I’m not going to comment on the detail of the rest of the 40-page document, which is full is pretty upbeat stories, and some (no doubt) useful advice to firms considering China. But this snippet did grab my attention, as I suspect it captures the flawed mindset that lies behind so much of our government’s approach to China.

China’s increasing economic success has given it greater influence in regional and international politics. Its prosperity has driven prosperity and stability throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

But that simply isn’t true on either count. Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan – the advanced countries of east Asia – aren’t rich because of the People’s Republic of China, but because they had their own policies, institutions, and people that equipped them to catch up with the leading economies of the West (something China is still failing to do). As for “stability” well it isn’t my field, but I doubt it is an impression shared by China’s neighbours dealing with its South China Sea expansionism. (I’ll try to do a separate post on the fallaciousness of the proposition that New Zealand’s economic prosperity, wellbeing, or stability depends to any large extent on China, hopefully drawing from some possible historical parallels.)

As is perhaps so often the case, what is missing from the document – the shop-front of the government’s China strategy, whether for firms looking to operate in China, or for citizens interested in evaluating government policy – is as interesting as what is there. There is no mention of how deeply corrupt much of China is, there is no mention of the pervasive controlling role of the Chinese Communist Party (generally regarded as more important than the state itself), and nothing on the absence of the rule of law (which means not the presence of courts, but the willingness to have independent judges apply laws impartially even when it doesn’t suit the authorities). You have to wonder whose interests those omissions serve. Beijing is no doubt happy. Established businesses trying to protect their interests in China may be too. Big China-associated donors to major parties might be.  But this is supposed to be a government of 4.8 million New Zealanders.

The other document I found on the MFAT website suggested that, in fact, at least among some officials there is a rather greater degree of realism about China than politicians seem ever willing to allow. In conjunction with MFAT, the Victoria University Contemporary China Research Centre is conducting five-day “master classes” for public servants. The purpose is described as

To develop a pipeline of China-savvy public sector professionals with global perspective and deep insight into the political, economic, security and cultural dimensions of the New Zealand government’s relationship with China.

It looks like a really interesting course. Among the speakers they have the retired ANU China expert, Geremie Barme, now resident in the Wairarapa, whose post on Professor Brady’s paper I linked to the other day.

Among the themes course participants will be considering are:

• The three Chinas: through the eyes of the Party, its history, and a leading global Sinophile
• What it means to be China savvy – developing a political, economic, security and perspective
• The peculiarities of media in China and the roles that Party and government play in controlling media
• The role the Chinese government takes in the threat of commercial failure to safety of Chinese. people in China and for Chinese outside of China.
• The nuances of building and protecting a brand in China, the Chinese legal system and the cultural nuances when doing business in China
• The profile of the modern Chinese in New Zealand and media influence on Chinese youth abroad.

But if this shows signs of a greater degree of realism, there are clearly limits. In the brochure for next month’s course it states of Day 1.

Scenarios throughout the day cover visiting delegations, the Māori-Chinese relationship, and navigating authorities.

But I also happened to find on-line a brochure for a version of the course run earlier this year. In that brochure it says of day 1.

Scenarios throughout the day cover visiting delegations, being Chinese in New Zealand, corruption issues, and the party-state structure.

Perhaps that was getting just a bit too close for comfort?

Last night I finished re-reading Richard McGregor’s excellent 2010 book The Party. On his final page, there were a couple of telling quotes.

The Chinese communist system is, in many way, rotten, costly, corrupt and often dysfunctional.

And

China has long known something that many in developed countries are only now beginning to grasp, that the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders have never wanted to be the West when they grow up. For the foreseeable future, it looks as though their wish, to bestride the world as a colossus on their own implacable terms, will come true.

That was, of course, written before the ascendancy of Xi Jinping.

Somewhat more immediately, a couple of people last night sent me a link to a new article by Charles Finny, former senior diplomat, and now a partner in the government relations firm Saunders Unsworth (where he describes himself as “making the impossible possible”). For someone who knows a great deal about China, and must surely be well aware of the sort of regime it is, and the nature of its activities, it did remind me of Lewis Carroll.

“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’

I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Finny’s article is headed “Time for NZ political parties to take the migrant vote seriously” (actually I was pretty sure Labour had been doing just that in South Auckland for decades), but his focus is on the ethnic Chinese vote, and Jian Yang.

On the last day of the Westie experience [some years ago] I was introduced to a National Party candidate, Dr Jian Yang. He was teaching in the political science department at the University of Auckland. We talked about his academic background, about what he had done in China before leaving for Australia (where he completed his PhD at ANU), about the China-New Zealand relationship and about the Chinese Embassy and Consulate network in New Zealand.

It was clear Dr Yang was very well-connected to the leadership of the Chinese communities in New Zealand, as well as to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China and its Auckland Consulate. He also had significant connections in China, both to government figures, and to the business community. This was the first of many meetings I have had with Dr Yang. We have met in his context as a MP, as a member of select committees and at social functions. We have travelled together to China and elsewhere as part of official delegations. It is my understanding that Dr Yang has become one of National’s most successful fundraisers, in much the same way Raymond Huo is important for the Labour Party’s fundraising efforts.

Did they, one wonders, back in 2010/11 discuss Yang’s background in the Communist Party and his teaching role in the Chinese foreign intelligence services?

What is astonishing is that one of New Zealand’s most-experienced China experts is, at least in public, untroubled by any of this: the close connections to a foreign government’s embassy, even as he serves as a member of the New Zealand Parliament, or the key role he describes both Yang, and Labour’s Raymond Huo playing in party fundraising?  Not that many decades ago, the convention – perhaps not always rigorously observed – was that elected politicians stayed well clear of party fundraising efforts, for good reasons to help maintain the integrity of the parliamentary system.

Finny is in full defence mode for Yang (and presumably Huo).

But it was a strange campaign period, with political players employing various strategies. Among the twists and turns, a rather strange and well-coordinated analysis/investigation was undertaken and then reported by Newsroom and the Financial Times about the past of Dr Yang. Subsequent coverage has led to calls for Dr Yang’s resignation.

Now, I have been involved in politics long enough to know that there are few stories of substance to emerge in the middle of an election campaign by coincidence (particularly ones that are so thoroughly researched). This was a story suggested by someone who had an agenda of some sort – and the timing was intentional.

If 10 days before an election isn’t a reasonable time to ask questions about a candidate’s background. I’m not sure when is? And it isn’t as if, to date, anything those media outlets reported has been disproved or refuted?

And Finny has nothing at all to say about Professor Brady’s paper, the timing of which was determined by the dates of an international conference she was presenting at. As he talks up – no doubt correctly – the importance of the migrant vote, surely suggestions that a major foreign power might be actively engaged in attempting to control most of the local Chinese-language media, and Chinese cultural associations, might have been worthy of some mention? These people are, after all, voters in our system, and our system allows new arrivals to vote much sooner than any other democracy.

I’m sure Finny is well aware of all this stuff, and is probably well able to distinguish the stronger bits of Professor Brady’s case from any that might be more questionable, or which might require more evidence to confirm. But nothing, not even a word. Would saying more have queered the pitch in terms of his future professional dealings?

Of course, if so, he isn’t the only one. Those master-classes MFAT is promoting had a number of eminent speakers. Some are current public servants and they, of course, must serve the government of the day. But most weren’t. And, of them all, the only one I’ve seen engage openly on the issues, and potential/actual threats Professor Brady raises, is Geremie Barme. And he’s Australian.

I’ve been critical of much our mainstream media for their lack of ongoing or substantive coverage of either the Jian Yang issue, or the more general influence-seeking activities Professor Brady describes. But you might have supposed that the Chinese-language media would be agog with the stories. In fact, I asked a fluent Chinese speaker about that. That person found that other than in Epoch Times (an anti-communist network of papers – including a NZ version – based in the US, apparently with some Falun Gong connections) there has been little about the Jian Yang story, and nothing at all about Professor Brady’s paper.

As Brady notes

New Zealand’s local Chinese language media platforms (with the exception of the pro-Falungong paper 大纪元/The Epoch Times) now have content cooperation agreements with Xinhua News Service, get their China-related news from Xinhua, and participate in annual media training conferences in China. Some media outlets have also employed senior staff members who are closely connected to the CCP. As part of Xi era efforts to “integrate” the overseas Chinese media with the domestic Chinese media, New Zealand Chinese media organizations are now also under the ‘guidance” of CCP propaganda officials.

The (lack of any) coverage of her paper and its claim would appear to consistent with her story.

And lest there is any doubt about the sort of regime the rest of the world faces in the People’s Republic of China, I thought this Reuters story on internal censorship in the modern age was a good place to end. It tells of a flash private company in China, full of eager young “auditors”, scouring the web for material to delete, anticipating/implementing the Chinese government-Party edicts.  Here, it seems, all too many of our government and opposition politicians, our academic and business elites, and too much of our media seem all too ready to do the same.  Whether it happens through naivete, a misreading of New Zealand’s economic exposure to China, the influence of private business interests, political fundraising opportunities, post-political opportunities, sponsorship deals, access, some combination of these, or whatever, it isn’t what we should accept in a free and democratic society.

 

On Saturday, New Zealand voters elected as a member of Parliament Jian Yang, a man who:

• by his own acknowledgement
  • was formerly a member of the Chinese Communist Party (many experts claim that the way the party works, no one is ever regarded as having left unless they are expelled),
  • was formerly part of the Chinese intelligence services,
  • in seeking New Zealand citizenship did not disclose to New Zealand authorities his past with the intelligence services and their training schools, and apparently regards as an acceptable justification for that omission the wishes of the authorities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a country he had left a decade earlier.
• has apparently never denounced the PRC (party or state) for the manifest evils for which it is responsible domestically, or for its increasingly expansionist and aggressive stance internationally.  He has never indicated any regret at having previously chosen to make himself part of that brutal and repressive system.
• clear documentary evidence, including photographs, indicates that he clearly remains in the good graces of the PRC authorities, and participates in many PRC- sponsored functions in New Zealand.

Perhaps it was bad enough that Yang was first elected to Parliament in 2011, and again in 2014.   At the time, voters knew none of this.

Perhaps the National Party did?  If so –  and they didn’t care, or think it relevant to voters –  that seems even worse than if they never bothered to do the checking and (as this 2011 article suggests) were simply playing identity politics and wanting an ethnic-Chinese candidate who would, among other things tap the potential donor base.  On that latter note, last week a National Party member and conference delegate recounted to me a past conversation with Peter Goodfellow, National Party president

The President once told me the Chinese are more important than the farms – they don’t complain and they pay up.

But if Jian Yang’s election to Parliament was quite bad enough in 2011 and 2014 –  when voters didn’t know and the National Party either didn’t know either, or knew but didn’t care or think it any concern of ours – it is astonishing this time round.    Of course, he was already on the party list, in a fairly secure spot, when the Financial Times/Newsroom stories broke.   But if he couldn’t by then have been removed from the party list, the National Party leadership could have disowned him and, for example, made clear that they would not accept the vote in Parliament of someone with such a tainted past and apparently close associations with the government/party of an alien power.   If they cared.

As it is, there is no evidence that they do care.   The leader of the National Party seemed to say nothing beyond the simple descriptive statement that Yang was reviewing his citizenship application papers (some of which were released under the Official Information Act late last week).  Yang himself seems to have said little beyond things like “people don’t understand the Chinese system” –  when in fact the problem is that they do (no former public servant in New Zealand, a decade after leaving New Zealand, is going to misrepresent his or her past to the government of another country “because that is what the New Zealand government told us to do”).  And then, of course, we had the Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson –  holder of an office with responsibility for upholding some of the fundamental values of our democratic system –  who, when asked in the closing days of the campaign about the appropriateness of someone with Yang’s track record being a New Zealand member of Parliament, had only the despicable “its all racism, and targeting the entire Chinese community” attempt at distraction to offer in response.   Whatever the faults of the impeccably liberal Financial Times, “racism” isn’t among them.

If you were of a charitable inclination, you might leave open the possibility that there really is some disquiet in the upper reaches of the National Party but….well……it was a close election, and better perhaps just to deal with these things quietly afterwards.  It is pretty openly acknowledged that the government has a policy of never upsetting the PRC government in public.  Perhaps in time Yang will find that “family commitments” or somesuch will mean he regrettably has to leave Parliament, by when the National Party will have smoothed the waters with Beijing and their representatives in New Zealand.   One can but hope, and even if there was some truth to this – wishful – hypothesis, it would still be telling about the enfeebled and compromised state of New Zealand democracy.

(One also sees various comments from smart people along the lines of “why is this an issue. If he was a spy, wouldn’t it be rather too obvious, and in any case there is no evidence that during his time in the intelligence services he, say, committed crimes against humanity?”   To my mind, neither is a remotely relevant issue.  And I’ve not heard anyone suggest Yang is a spy.  But as we’d have regarded it as incredible –  simply not believable or acceptable – to have had an unrepentant former member of the KGB or the GRU, still liaising closely with the Soviet Embassy, as an MP 40 years ago whatever specific role the person had played in that evil empire, so we should regard former Chinese foreign intelligence officials now.  No matter how pleasant they might be individually, or how good an academic they might have been.  Parliament is different.

And if the National Party is particularly culpable here, the Labour Party (as principal opposition party) emerges barely better.  Over the last six years, Yang has sat opposite them in Parliament?.  Didn’t they seek to learn more about the background of MPs of the opposite party, looking to identify points of vulnerability in the governing party?  Isn’t that part of what we should expect from opposition parties.  And since the Financial Times/Newsroom stories broke, the Labour Party leadership have been almost silent –  a week out from an election.  Professor Brady’s paper suggests that the Labour Party has also been somewhat compromised by too close associations with PRC interests, but whatever the reason robust democracy depends on serious scrutiny and challenge from the opposition.  It is –  supposed to be –  an intrinsic part of the system, even if it is not an approach that commands much favour in Beijing.

And then there is the press. Financial Times/Newsroom broke the story.   The local media gave it coverage for one day’s news cycle –  TVNZ even broadcast a call from Beijing-based New Zealand economist, Rodney Jones, calling for Yang to resign.  And both Stuff and the Herald OIA’ed Yang’s citizenship application.  But that was about it.  I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a single editorial about the issue, and no sign of relentless questioning of political party leaders about the issues on the campaign trail.  And the Finlayson attack was neither reported nor followed up.

I’m not sure what to make of the silence?   Some talk about the possible commercial interests of the newspaper owners –  Fairfax signed a deal a year or two back to distribute an occasional China Watch supplement –  but that doesn’t seem terribly persuasive as an explanation.  Among other things, Fairfax papers in Australia have been writing recent stories about PRC attempts at influence in Australia, and their Asia-Pacific editor has highlighted a number of these issues, including the Brady paper and comment on it, on his Twitter feed.  And, of course, it wouldn’t explain the near-complete silence of non-commercial media like Radio New Zealand.   Perhaps there is something in the story that PRC-funded entities assist media outlets with travel to China, and one needs to be careful not to bite the hands that feed?   If so, so compromised, and worse.  So we must hope that isn’t the story either.

Our major media outlets don’t usually seem afraid of taking on the government.  Agree with them or not –  and I didn’t follow the issue closely –  Stuff recently devoted large amounts of resources to serious investigative work around New Zealand involvement’s in Afghanistan.  Health system problems, child poverty, housing, multi-national tax issues have alll seen extensive investigations, and in some cases what amount to “campaigns”.  But not, it seems, either the specific issue of the presence in our Parliament of an Chinese-government affiliated MP, and former member of the Chinese intelligence services.  Or the wider issue Professor Brady has highlighted –  and attracted plenty of positive coverage abroad for –  of the systematic PRC (state/party) efforts to exert influence, both directly and through the Chinese diaspora, in democratic societies.   It seems extraordinary that I can find correspondents from the New York Times, the Financial Times, or Fairfax Australia drawing attention to the Brady paper and the Yang issue, but not most New Zealand media.  Or international China scholars and writers, but few other local academics.   Frankly I’m a bit incredulous.

I also don’t really buy the line that the near-complete silence is explained by fear of being called “racist” –  the initial Stephen Franks interpretation – even if a senior Cabinet minister did go straight to that line of attempted defence.    No serious person thinks that this issue is about Chinese people per se, whether native-born citizens of New Zealand, more recent citizens or residents, or whatever.   China is a big and emerging power.  As the China Daily put it just yesterday, a “lion awakening”, sparking this reaction from one wit.

There have been other emergent big powers previously – the Soviet Union and Germany in just the last 100 years –  whose interests and values were antithetical to our own.  They pursued their interests, and their attempts to do so were threats to us and our interests and values.  China isn’t really any different –  it is just even bigger.

So I can only assume that the silence of the New Zealand media, and most of the political parties, and of the current and former business elites, must reflect something like them having bought into a New Zealand government narrative (established over a long period of time) that we simply mustn’t say anything critical of China, and certainly not openly.  That New Zealand’s best interests are somehow served by accommodating China’s interests and preferences wherever necessary.   In that world, perhaps, someone like Jian Yang is seen as a useful “friend at court”?      It would be a curious stance for the media at least –  after all, their self-image is often one of fearless challenge, speaking the truth to power, asking hard questions other won’t.  But what other explanation makes much sense?

You have to wonder quite what New Zealanders have to fear.   And here perhaps the double-edged sword of trade becomes relevant.  I went and dug out the numbers yesterday for New Zealand’s trade with the Soviet Union in the 1970s.  Our exports to the Soviet Union then made up around 2-3 per cent of our total exports.  By contrast, our exports to China are now around 20 per cent of total exports.

Trade is generally good and mutually beneficial. I’m a free trader, who would prefer to see all our remaining tariffs and trade restrictions removed (they harm us, not other people) and am somewhat sceptical of the various preferential trade agreements our governments have been signing.  But I suspect trade between New Zealand firms and firms in countries where governments have a pretty hands-off approach are rather different than when the trade involves firms (often effectively government/party controlled anyway –  as, say, Sanlu was ) in state with a fairly totalitarian approach to the use of trade as an instrument of heavy-handed foreign policy.

I’m sure New Zealanders benefit from trade with China, and Chinese do too.  That is, in general, the nature of trade.    But if trade access for particular firms –  and their directors and owners –  depends on making nice to a government of a state with values and practices antithetical to those of most New Zealanders then there is an unpriced externality involved.     With the Soviet Union, maintaining moral clarity around the nature of the regime was relatively easy: not that many people in New Zealand, or similar countries, had a strong economic interest in making nice to the Soviet Union.  With China it is different.  We have Fonterra and the milk powder companies.  We have university vice-chancellors and their counterparts in other educational establishments.  And we have tourism industry leaders all looking to their own economic interests –  which aren’t necessarily the same as the interests in New Zealand –  in encouraging people to look the other away, to ignore Chinese abuses, and to aim to ensure that the public never gets too bothered about the actions of the PRC in New Zealand, including among our own fellow citizens who are ethnic Chinese.

There is a view abroad – propounded for example by people at the Contemporary China Research Centre, based at Victoria University – that somehow China is critical to whether or not New Zealand succeeds economically. I found this quote in a recent major report (the bulk of which I want to come back to)

New Zealand’s future is increasingly bound with China’s continued growth and prosperity. Perhaps not inextricably, but certainly the way that China tracks over the next decade and beyond will have a profound impact on whether New Zealand prospers as a nation. Most public and political commentary in New Zealand focusses on the state of the economic relationship. It is hard to overstate its importance
for New Zealand’s prosperity.

That is simply wrong. Nations largely make their own prosperity – or their own failures. Individual firms (and tertiary institutions – several of which take direct funding from the PRC) might be deeply affected by things China’s government could do, but over the medium to longer-term, New Zealand’s fortunes won’t be. As I’ve noted previously, the exports of New Zealand firms to China are (directly) around 5 per cent of our GDP. By contrast, say, Canada’s exports to the US are more than 20 per cent of Canada’s GDP.

There are plenty of countries with much larger direct exposure to China (this chart I found yesterday uses data a few years old, but the general point holds).

South Korea is an interesting example, with a much larger direct trade exposure to China than we do. But that trade exposure is now smaller than it was, because in recent months China has been expressing its extreme displeasure with South Korea, imposing what are in effect economic sanctions in response to South Korea allowing the installation of the THAAD missile defence system. You can read some of the details here.

As it happens, there was a New Zealand column about just this issue on interest.co.nz yesterday, from Victoria University’s professor of business in Asia (a chair sponsored by BNZ, but also by a clutch of government agencies. After discussing the Korea situation he concludes

The THAAD case shows that it is critical to keep an eye on the political alignment between a business’ home country and the host country where it seeks to do business.

Which sort of makes my point. The interests of businesses wanting to trade in a particular country won’t always align well with the interests and values of the home country. That isn’t likely to be much of a problem in trade with the UK or Australia, or Singapore for that matter. It is, as the Koreans have found, with China. The very fact that China operates in the way it is doing with Korea suggests it isn’t the sort of regime our governments and media should be deferring to.

Some people might look at it the other way and say “if they can do it to Korea they can do it to us”. First, South Korea will survive economically, and is proceeding with the THAAD deployment. But, second, South Korea – and the entire situation on the peninsula – is likely to matter a great deal more to China than New Zealand does. It is difficult to imagine severe trade sanctions because New Zealand was willing to have an open and honest debate about whether it is appropriate for someone like Jian Yang to serve in our Parliament, let alone about the way in which the PRC seeks to exert influence and neutralise potential criticism in countries like our own. There is more of that sort of debate already in Australia and Canada. But if, just suppose, they did – to “make an example” perhaps – wouldn’t that be a moment of moral clarity, that brought into sharp relief how a state we constantly defer to operates. There was highflown talk – John Key and Xi Jinping – of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. We’d never have considered one with the Soviet Union. The PRC is today’s Soviet Union, with many more routes into our system directly than the Soviet Union ever had.

What have we come to?

I was exchanging notes the other day with a very senior journalist in Asia who observed of this state of affairs that “I have found that the more expert in China a person is the more troubling they find all of this”.

On which note, I had an email out of the blue the other day from someone with an unfamiliar name, and when I opened the link he sent me I found it was for something called “The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology”. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, being instinctively sceptical of (yes, prejudiced about) the Wairarapa. But it turns out that an eminent Australian expert on China, Geremie Barme, formerly Director, Australian Centre on China in the World and Chair Professor of Chinese History at Australian National University has retired to the Wairarapa, where he contines to research and write on related issues, and is establishing the (mostly virtual) academy. He has a good new piece out on these issues, which appears to have been quite widely disseminated among China observers abroad. He might be someone New Zealand media could consider talking to. Can any good thing come out of Featherston? Apparently so.

UPDATE (Thurs)
There is a new short commentary by Professor Brady on the PRC-influence issues, and a Newsroom story suggesting that Winston Peters may continue to regard the Jian Yang issues as worth pursuing.