[Note that this afternoon Huo backed down and is now inviting Brady to appear.  While welcome, it is pretty chaotic –  the PM’s office supported the ban this morning –  and hard questions should be posed to all the Labour MPs involved, including the PM. If/when she appears it will be extensively covered by domestic and foreign media, with almost every story prefaced by “in the appearance the committee chair tried to prevent happening at all…]

Perhaps it went down well in Beijing, but it is hard to imagine it did so anywhere else. Even China Council Advisory Board member and China Business Summit co-chair Fran O’Sullivan tweeted that it was a mistake.

My own tweet of the Herald’s article on the story, noting that it seemed almost literally unbelievable (but nonetheless true), was retweeted by quite a range of PRC-focused journalists and the like, and many others have drawn attention themselves to this extraordinary mis-step (the most charitable possible interpretation) by our PRC-deferential government.

Yesterday, the four Labour members of Parliament’s Justice select committee voted to block Professor Anne-Marie Brady from appearing in front of the committee as part of its investigation into foreign interference in our election.   That committee is chaired by Raymond Huo, who has close associations with various PRC United Front bodies, and was personally responsible for adopting a slogan of Xi Jinping’s as Labour’s campaign slogan among ethnic Chinese communities in New Zealand.

After each general election, Parliament’s Justice committee undertakes a review.  They invite public submissions, an opportunity for people to raise issues of concern (eg bizarre laws that mean that despite huge volumes of advance voting, you can say anything partisan you like on all those days, but are subject to very tight restrictions on so-called “election day”).  Each time, the committee makes a choice about a particular area to focus on.

This time round public submissions closed last September.  In October –  note that October comes after September –  the Minister of Justice (who is also responsible for the intelligence services) wrote to the committee encouraging it to focus on foreign interference issues.   The committee adopted the Minister’s suggestion.  This was, to repeat, after the opportunity for public submissions had already closed.

According to the media reports, Professor Anne-Marie Brady of Canterbury University, recently wrote to the committee and asked to be heard as part of its inquiry.    The committee voted yesterday, splitting on party lines, to refuse.    This was, we are told, on “narrow procedural grounds”, or in the words of Mr Huo the chairman

If we don’t tell you (in fact don’t know ourselves) we are looking into the subject until after the normal date for submissions has closed, somehow it is your fault if you didn’t read Andrew Little’s mind and make a submission anyway.   After all, it is such a trivially unimportant issue and your view so lacking in usefulness, that why would we even think about making an exception and taking up your kind offer to come and testify, sharing your professional expertise in the area.

Huo and his Labour colleagues on the committee (Ginny Anderson, Duncan Webb and Greg O’Connor, each of whom one might have expected more from –  one a lawyer, two former Police employees) are acting disgracefully.  They dishonour Parliament and our democracy.

I’ve been a bit sceptical about this inquiry all along.  When National MP Nick Smith suggested a few months ago a foreign donations ban, and noted that the intelligence services would be invited to talk to the Justice Committee inquiry, I wrote this

So a committee chaired by Raymond Huo, he of various United Front bodies, he who chose a slogan of Xi Jinping’s for Labour Chinese-language compaign in 2017, with a senior National MP promoting only the narrowest reform (while [still] providing cover for Jian Yang) will invite the intelligence agencies to provide advice on foreign influence issues, but in secret.   Perhaps –  but only perhaps, because the fact of this hearing might be used to simply play distraction – it is marginally better than nothing, but we don’t need intelligence agencies to tell us there is an issue around the PRC. Both main parties know what they are doing –  who they associate with, who they take money from, who they honour, who they seek closer relations with, and who they refuse ever to criticise, no matter how egregious the regime’s abuses.  All the minor parties keep quiet and go along too.

I’m still more than a little suspicious of National in this area, but credit to them for pushing the Brady (non)appearance to a vote, and championing the importance of outside perspectives –  even awkward ones for them –  being heard.  Next thing you know they’ll be disowning Jian Yang.  But no, silly me….

It seems from the various news articles that Labour MPs only want the intelligence services to testify to the inquiry.

The Committee had asked the Security Intelligence Service, the Government Communications and Security Bureau and the National Assessments Bureau to appear.

“As committee chair, I am satisfied that the correct procedure has been followed and that the agencies will keep the committee well informed about any issues of foreign interference that may arise,” Huo said in a statement.

Of course the intelligence services –  while no doubt exercising some integrity in their comments –  work for (Labour) cabinet ministers.  And many of the sorts of issues Anne-Marie Brady has raised, in particular in her Magic Weapons paper , aren’t primarily matters for the intelligence services at all, but more about political culture and integrity.  For what it is worth, whenever in my career I dealt with the National Assessments Bureau, it further undercut my confidence.

It has always been a slight mystery why the government, in the form of Andrew Little, initiated this foreign interference focus to the post-election inquiry.  After all, very soon after becoming minister for the intelligence services Little was on record as regards the PRC saying words to the effect of “move right along, nothing to see here”.   Like his leader, he’s never expressed any concern about a former PRC military intelligence official sitting in Parliament, actually in the government caucus for six years.

Perhaps all they really wanted was some cyber-focused thing, perhaps building off all the stuff around Russian social media activity in the lead-up to the US election.   Perhaps there is even something useful they can do in that area, but it is like digging in pursuit of hidden treasure while ignoring the issues and risks that are in plain sight.   It was, after all, former diplomat and now lobbyist, Charles Finny who observed on national TV that, in view of their close ties to the PRC Embassy he was always rather guarded in what he said in front of either Raymond Huo or Jian Yang.   Large political donations flow to parties from New Zealand citizens with close PRC regime ties.  The mayor of Auckland was elected with heavy financial support from a large offshore (PRC) donor.  One (now) prominent regime-associated political donor managed to gets a Queen’s Birthday last year, supported by both main parties.   Senior figures in Chatham House fora express open concern about the reliance of the main parties on PRC-sympathetic funding.  PRC interests now dominate the Chinese language media in New Zealand.  Perhaps the public servants have some perspectives on these and other issues, but public service perspectives are not (and never should be) the only ones being heard by MPs.

I initially wondered if this block on Brady was simply Raymond Huo going off reservation. He doesn’t seem to be regarded as the best of the bunch in the Labour caucus.  Nick Smith even suggested the Prime Minister might intervene

Smith said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern needed to intervene and ask the Labour members of the committee to reconsider their decision.

But, as Newsroom reports, the Labour MPs on the committee appear to have the full backing of the Prime Minister

A spokesman for Ardern echoed Huo’s comments, saying: “Our position would be that this is a procedural matter for the committee and that the various agencies presenting are well placed to provide information on foreign interference and the threat of it.”

Simply extraordinary.  Either captured by the public service and/or by those trying to tap the PRC-related markets (deals or donations).  Someone still not interested in serious and open examination of the issues.  Another Prime Minister more interested in deferring to Beijing, never ever saying anything upsetting if it can possibly be avoided, than in shedding light on the issues in New Zealand, and advancing the decency and integrity of our political system.  The same Prime Minister who has never made a robust defence of Anne-Marie Brady, facing physical attempts to intimidate her for doing her job.  Pretty shameful really, if perhaps now par for the prime ministerial course.

Labour will take, and have already taken, quite a bit of flak over this blatant refusal to hear from Professor Brady.  Invited to testify to the Australian Parliament, our own main governing party (party of the Prime Minister, party of the minister for the intelligence services) is apparently too scared to openly face her in our own Parliament.  What an extraordinary situation.  One wonders what the Minister of Foreign Affairs –  in fine voice often in opposition, silent as a lamb in government –  makes of this choice by his senior coalition partner?

If the Prime Minister or Andrew Little really are behind this ban, they must be very worried about Professor Brady might say, and the coverage it might get.  Why otherwise would you block her?  If her arguments and evidence were so easy to dismiss and rebut, where better than at a parliamentary inquiry (with all the resources of the public service to support the government).  They’re clearly scared.

Professor Brady’s paper isn’t primarily, or even largely, about Raymond Huo. In many respects, he is a bit player.  But here for ease of reference is what Brady wrote about the chair of Parliament’s Justice Committee, appointed by our Prime Minister.

National’s ethnic Chinese MP Yang Jian, Labour’s Raymond Huo, and ACT’s Kenneth Wang have had varying degrees of relations with united front organizations in New Zealand and the PRC embassy.

and

Even more so than Yang Jian, who until the recent controversy, was not often quoted in the New Zealand non-Chinese language media, the Labour Party’s ethnic Chinese MP, Raymond Huo霍建强 works very publicly with China’s united front organizations in New Zealand and promotes their policies in English and Chinese. Huo was a Member of Parliament from 2008 to 2014, then returned to Parliament again in 2017 when a list position became vacant. In 2009, at a meeting organized by the Peaceful Reunification of China Association of New Zealand to celebrate Tibetan Serf Liberation Day, Huo said that as a “person from China” (中国人) he would promote China’s Tibet policies to the New Zealand Parliament.

Huo works very closely with the PRC representatives in New Zealand.  In 2014, at a meeting to discuss promotion of New Zealand’s Chinese Language Week (led by Huo and Johanna Coughlan) Huo said that “Advisors from Chinese communities will be duly appointed with close consultation with the Chinese diplomats and community leaders.” Huo also has close contacts with the Zhi Gong Party 致公党 (one of the eight minor parties under the control of the United Front Work Department). The Zhi Gong Party is a united front link to liaise with overseas Chinese communities, as demonstrated in a meeting between Zhi Gong Party leaders and Huo to promote the New Zealand OBOR Foundation and Think Tank.

It was Huo who made the decision to translate Labour’s 2017 election campaign slogan “Let’s do it” into a quote from Xi Jinping (撸起袖子加油干, which literally means “roll up your sleeves and work hard”). Huo told journalists at the Labour campaign launch that the Chinese translation “auspiciously equates to a New Year’s message from President Xi Jinping encouraging China to ‘roll its sleeves up’.” However, inauspiciously, in colloquial Chinese, Xi’s phrase can also be read as “roll up your sleeves and f..k hard” and the verb (撸) has connotations of masturbation. Xi’s catchphrase has been widely satirized in Chinese social media.  Nonetheless, the phrase is now the politically correct slogan for promoting OBOR, both in China and abroad. The use of Xi’s political catchphrase in the Labour campaign, indicates how tone deaf Huo and those in the Chinese community he works with are to how the phrase would be received in the New Zealand political environment. In 2014, when asked about the issue of Chinese political influence in New Zealand, Huo told RNZ National, “Generally the Chinese community is excited about the prospect of China having more influence in New Zealand” and added, “many Chinese community members told him a powerful China meant a backer, either psychologically or in the real sense.”

and

During his successful campaign for the Auckland mayoralty, in 2016, former Labour leader and MP, Phil Goff received $366,115 from a charity auction and dinner for the Chinese community.  The event was organized by Labour MP Raymond Huo. Tables sold for $1680 each. Because it was a charity auction Goff was not required to state who had given him donations, but one item hit the headlines. A signed copy of the Selected Works of Xi Jinping was sold to a bidder from China for $150,000. A participant at the fundraiser said the reason why so many people attended and had bid strongly for items was because they believed Goff would be the next mayor.  In individual donations, Goff’s largest donor, giving $50,000, was Fuwah New Zealand Ltd, a Chinese-owned company building a 5-star hotel on Auckland’s waterfront and working closely with the New Zealand One Belt One Road Promotion Council.

and

In June 2017, at the Langley Hotel in Auckland, the State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office hosted an update meeting to discuss the integration of the overseas Chinese media with the domestic Chinese media. In attendance was Li Guohong, Vice Director of the Propaganda Department of the State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, and other senior CCP media management officials, representatives of the ethnic Chinese media in New Zealand, representatives of ethnic Chinese community groups, and Labour MP Raymond Huo.  Update meetings (通气会) are one of the main ways the CCP relays instructions to the domestic Chinese media, in order to avoid a paper trail. Party directives are accorded a higher status than national law.

For someone who claims that his activities and involvements are all fair and proper and just the sort of thing one expects MPs to do, he and his masters certainly act –  in the Brady affair –  as if there is something to hide, something that might leave them rather uncomfortable.

That is supposed to be the point of parliamentary scrutiny, parliamentary inquiries.  But not, it appears, in this country, on these issues.  Better to keep Madame Wu happy than bother overly much about our own people, their interests, and their system of government.  It is still an odd call though.  Professor Brady shows no sign of being intimidating or stopping her work. If it refuses to engage and examine the issues she is raising, Parliament reveals itself the problem more than the people we can look to for the solution.  Oh, but I forgot, according to the government there is no problem.

After my interview on Morning Report yesterday about Jenny Shipley and the New Zealand China Council, the Executive Director of the China Council Stephen Jacobi was tweeting that it had been a “hatchet job”.    This morning Radio New Zealand interviewed him: he observed that my comments, noting that the China Council in effect served as a propagandist for Beijing’s interests, had “put me off my muesli”.

It was a fairly soft interview that really did nothing to dispel the suggestion that the China Council – substantially funded by the government, with two very senior public servants on the Board –  serves, in effect, as a propagandist for Beijing’s interests.  The fact that the people involved probably think they are primarily serving their own commercial interests, and perhaps even some warped conception of the national interest, doesn’t change that.   Unfortunately, the interviewer didn’t ask Jacobi for a single example of a case where the China Council had been critical of the PRC.  For the record, I haven’t been able to find a single example.   Around a regime so egregious –  in the way it operates at home, in other countries, in New Zealand, in commercial and in political spheres –  that really tells you all one needs to know.   It looks a lot like a body solely motivated by deals, dollars, and donations, and using public money to try to keep the public quiet.   When you treat as normal a regime that represents so much that is evil, you serve their ends, even if that is not necessarily your conscious intent.   A well-publicised gala dinner for the emissary of the CCP/PRC, just helps make that more egregious.  Supping with the devil, without even a desire for a long spoon.

But the interview probably was useful in explaining to listeners some of how the China Council works.  It is an incorporated society, sponsored by the previous government, with substantial government funding (and senior public servants on the Board).  The rest of the funding comes from the corporate or individual members of the Council, who are able to leverage the government funding to advance their business interests around the PRC (not necessarily directly –  as Jacobi notes, Fonterra doesn’t need the China Council to handle its relationship with the PRC –  but in managing the climate of opinion in New Zealand, attempting to neutralise any criticisms of the PRC).  There is no PRC government money involved, but two of the Executive Board members also hold positions in PRC-sponsored entities in China (the Confucius Institute worldwide programme and the Boao Forum).   One of the Advisory Board members was a former member of the PRC military intelligence system, and a Communist Party member.

Jacobi claims that the China Council works for all New Zealanders and in the national interest. You might have supposed that that is what we have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (even NZTE) for, and what we elect politicians for.  The former work to politicians, and the politicians themselves we can toss out.    The China Council seems more about trying to articulate a view of the national interest that happens to suit the commercial imperatives of those involved.  Of course, it is pretty well-aligned with the views of senior figures in both main political parties, which boil down to “if at all possible, never ever say anything that might upset Beijing”, while cowering in the corner even when friends and allies (or fellow New Zealanders) are under attack.  If a life worth living is about more than just dollars, it is a pretty sick conception of a “national interest”, although easy to see how it might be in the narrow individual business interests of some firms, universities etc.   Jacobi claimed that none of the people involved would allow themselves to be duped or a mouthpiece for a foreign government.  At one level I’m sure that’s true: they aren’t duped, they are simply prioritising their commercial interests over any sense of decency, or of the integrity of our own political and social system.   These things just don’t matter (enough) to them.

I had a look yesterday at the rules of the China Council

china council rules incorporated society

I was interested to learn that, for a body set up and sustained by the government, allegedly to advance the “national interest”, actually it is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.   You can only join this Council (not the Executive Board, but the society itself) if you are invited to do so by the Executive Board.  And who appoints the Board?  Why, the Board itself appoints its own members.    In a genuinely private organisation that might be just fine  (their choice) but this is a publicly-funded, government-sponsored body, where two of our most senior public servants themselves sit on the Board.   Don’t expect (for example) Anne-Marie Brady to be showing up on the council any time soon –  a Council that can’t even bring itself to express concerns about the way a New Zealand citizen, expert on the PRC, appears to have been harrassed and worse by people rather more directly attempting to serve PRC interests.

As I said, it was a pretty soft interview.   Jacobi was asked about my suggestion that the Council never ever says a word critical of the PRC.  He parried this by observing (correctly enough) that they do note from time to time that there are differences in our systems, and that he even says (again from time to time) that the way we interact with the PRC needs to take account of our values.    But it just doesn’t make any practical difference, and neither Jacobi nor his masters (on the Executive Board or in Wellington) seem to want it to.  Such things shouldn’t get in the way of the dollars (whether exports or political party donations).    When news of possible ban on Huawei emerged, the China Council’s statement seemed a lot more concerned to protect Huawei than it did about the national security etc of New Zealand.  When the GCSB was issuing a statement about PRC state-sponsored intellectual property theft, the China Council was totally silent –  not a press statement, not a tweet nothing.    When serious concerns have been raised by Jian Yang’s past, included acknowledged misrepresentations on his immigration/citizenship forms, the China Council goes into bat for this former PRC intelligence officer, keeps him close on their Advisory Council, and repeatedly attempts to invoke the x word.   When public debate, led by the work of Anne-Marie Brady, gets going, the China Council can only lament it.  It never substantively engages –  for example with the specifics of Brady’s work.  And that is the sort of thing I mean when I say that the China Council (whatever their individual subjective intentions) objectively serves Beijing’s interest and ends.

As I said the other day, there might well be a place for some public funding for a serious think-tank or independent body devoted to serious analysis, research, and debate around the nature of the relationship with the PRC.  It is a big and a powerful country, with values very much not our own, and there are all manner of dimensions to a relationship.  The China Council is nothing of that sort –  in its own purpose statements, it is an advocacy body, championing ever-closer relationships with a regime so evil, with no serious interest in exploring risks, threats, or downsides.  That serves Beijing’s interests.

Towards the end of the interview Jacobi was asked about the position of Jenny Shipley on the China Council’s Executive Board.  Jacobi attempted to parry that by suggesting it was above his pay grade (a matter for the Executive Board) –  which might leave one wondering why Don McKinnon (the chair) didn’t front up instead.   Jacobi told us that McKinnon had spoken to Shipley, but said that he wasn’t aware of the content.    With a full week having now passed since the High Court judgment was handed down, and with the Prime Minister not willing to express any concern, it looks as though she is going nowhere.  In fact, Jacobi went on to speak highly of Shipley (former Prime Minister, “widely respected in China”), and to note that the China Council is not a financial institution or a commercial organisation.  That’s true.  It is more than that; it is a New Zealand government sponsored organisation.    I’m sure there is some fondness for Shipley in Beijing –  cover for Jiang Zemin against protestors all the way through to interviews declaring how wonderful the Belt and Road Initiative is.   But this is someone who presided over the failure of a major company in New Zealand, allowing it to trade for years while insolvent, failing in her basic duties.   That isn’t acceptable conduct in New Zealand.  A person with that track record –  perhaps especially when a former Prime Minister –  shouldn’t be holding high-profile semi-government appointments.  For her to keep on doing so tells you about the Prime Minister’s, the Foreign Minister’s, and the China Council’s Board and Executive Director’s values and priorities.  Again, it wouldn’t appear to be decency and integrity.

As it happens, skimming through the China Council rules I came to the section headed “Expulsion”.  It had this provision under which the Board could expel a member

Seemed to cover the Mainzeal situation and the recent High Court ruling quite well.

But if the self-perpetuating business and political people on the China Council board –  including the Secretary of Foreign Affairs no less –  think Shipley’s ongoing presence among them isn’t unbecoming or damaging to their interests, it really probably tells you all one needs to know about the tawdry China Council, simply pursuing the dollars and always looking away from the evils –  at home, abroad, and here –  of one the worst regimes on the planet today.  Propanda isn’t just telling upbeat lies, it can include minimising evil and treating as normal and respectable the perpetrators of those evils.

But quite at home with Ardern, Haworth, Bridges, McClay, Goodfellow and the rest of our political “leaders”.

Postlude

In a post the other day, I ran an extract from this article about PRC forced labour camps from the Italian site Bitter Winter.  A prominent New Zealander later told me it had shaken him.  Here is another extract

The living conditions in prisons are deplorable. Prisoners often eat vegetable-leaf soup with insects floating in it. As a result of malnutrition, they often feel dizzy and do not have the strength to work.

To ensure that prisoners complete their work even when physically exhausted, the prison authorities resort to torture.

The interviewees report that prison guards incite the more vicious prisoners to discipline other inmates. Thus, it is common to be beaten by “prison bullies” when someone fails to complete the task. Mr. Zhu told Bitter Winter, “If a prisoner cannot complete their task, the prison guards will tie the prisoner’s hands and feet to an iron fence, and they are forced to stand continuously except during meals. Whether in winter or summer, they remain continually tied up for three or four days and aren’t allowed to sleep.”

This sort of thing is just fine by the China Council, Jenny Shipley, or Stephen Jacobi?  Or do they just not care.  Hard to tell which is worse.

We can’t fix other countries.  We can demand some self-respect and decency around how we do things here.   Neither Jian Yang nor Jenny Shipley has any place near a China Council that really served New Zealand interests, consistent with New Zealand values.

Last week I wrote a post about Jenny Shipley’s position in the wake of the High Court judgment against her and other directors of Mainzeal.

I noted then that her position as chair of the local China Construction Bank was almost certainly untenable.  Even if, for some reason, the owners (the parent bank) had still been happy to have her, the Reserve Bank could not have allowed her to remain in her post and still retained any credibility around its “fit and proper person” regime. The Mainzeal board, chaired by Shipley, had continued trading for years with negative equity, with only the weakest suggestions of possible support from the parent.  Corporate law is designed to protect creditors from that sort of corporate (mis)governance.

Shipley has now announced that she will be leaving the China Construction Bank board.   We don’t know how much of a role the Reserve Bank played in that departure. No doubt they would hide behind the Official Information Act (or worse, section 105 of the Reserve Bank Act) and refuse to tell us.  That is a shame: it is a lost opportunity to demonstrate to the public that the regime has teeth when it comes to seriously problematic individuals. Mind you, I guess it might also leave them open to questions about how it is that they were happy to have Jenny Shipley chairing a New Zealand bank for the last several years, as more and more information about the Mainzeal situation emerged.

The focus now turns to Shipley’s role on the Executive Board of the New Zealand China Council.   In my earlier post I commented on this only briefly

As for Shipley’s membership of the executive board of the China Council……surely that tawdry taxpayer-funded body that sticks up for Beijing at every turn, has Jian Yang on its advisory board, defends Huawei, and won’t stick up for Anne-Marie Brady is just the place for her?  Then again, if the government doesn’t want the last vestiges of any credibility its propaganda body still has to be in shreds, they should probably remove her too. 

Shipley has clearly been very much in the good graces of Beijing over the years.  It wasn’t long ago that she had actually been on the parent board of the China Construction Bank, and she is now on the board of the regime-sponsored Boao Forum.   She has a long history of giving cover (literally in this case) to Beijing, going back to her brief time as Prime Minister.   Even that interview she gave to the People’s Daily back in December suggests a strong (and useful to Beijing) alignment between her public views and the preferred stances of Beijing.

But it isn’t clear whose interests are now really being served if she remains on the Executive Board of the China Council –  except perhaps those like me who poke the stick at this taxpayer-funded pro-Beijing advocacy and propaganda body.

Perhaps it suits Beijing to have such a tainted individual on their tame domestic lobby group.  See, democracy  and ‘doing the right thing’ is so enfeebled in New Zealand that our friend gets to retain her public position despite the very evident systematic poor governance on display at Mainzeal.   Perhaps, but Shipley’s failings are now sufficiently evident –  and will now always be associated with her name – that is doesn’t look as though it would really help the cause of keeping New Zealanders lulled into obliviousness about the nature of the regime.  The China Council is supposed to look like a bunch of decent public-spirited New Zealanders.

For similar reasons it can’t really be in the interests of the China Council itself for Shipley to stay on.  All the other, individually decent, people who sit on the Executive Board will be tarred by association.  You can’t so fundamentally mismanage a major business, resulting in huge losses for many people as a result of choices that were irresponsible and probably illegal, and expect to keep right on in prominent governance roles.    It wasn’t one small mistake early in someone’s career, but a big and very costly mistake for someone with the seniority and experience people should have been able to count on.  Shipley might still be well-connected in China, but there are other people with connections (if not, I’m sure Madame Wu at the PRC Embassy could help with introductions).  And everyone knows that neither corporate governance nor political governance in the PRC operate to the sorts of standards we expect in New Zealand.    If the China Council really wants us to believe that they champion New Zealand standing for New Zealand values, standards, and interests –  not just pre-emptively submitting to Beijing’s preferences – it should be in their interests too to get Jenny Shipley off their board, and quickly.

In a sense who owned Mainzeal shouldn’t be that relevant here –  the failure of the directors was alarming and unacceptable whoever the shareholders had been – but the fact that the firm was owned by someone originally from the PRC, and with extensive interests back there, just strengthens the argument around appearances.   The suspicion has been that, in effect, the China Council serves PRC interests more than those of New Zealanders.  A harsh critic might suggest something similar (perhaps unfairly) about the Mainzeal board.

And it shouldn’t be in the government’s interest for Jenny Shipley to remain on the China Council board either.  I was staggered at the way the Prime Minister the other day sought to avoid any responsibility or any involvement.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was earlier asked whether she had any problem with Shipley being on the New Zealand China Council. She said it was not an appointment the Government had any role in.

The rules of the incorporated society that is the China Council are not readily available, so I’m not sure quite what the formal mechanism is for appointments to the Executive Board.  The China Council’s website also doesn’t say.   But it shouldn’t matter greatly.  The government pays

The Council receives approximately two thirds of its operational funding from the New Zealand Government through an annual grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 

[UPDATE: The latest set of accounts suggest just under half now, but with the government clearly the single largest funder.]

and very senior government officials serve on the Executive Board with Shipley.

The Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Chief Executive of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise are both ex officio members of the Executive Board.

It is a creature of the New Zealand government and the Prime Minister simply can’t avoid responsibility.  I wonder what the Foreign Minister –  no fan of Shipley –  thinks?  Is the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade really comfortable serving on an Executive Board with someone like Shipley?

Perhaps there are discussions going on behind the scenes, but after a week since the judgment was handed down, it is quite inappropriate that Jenny Shipley is still on the Executive Board of this prominent government-funded body, and that the Prime Minister won’t express a view on the appropriateness of Shipley’s position.

I was debating this point with someone the other day who argued that if the Prime Minister expressed a view she would open herself to attacks from the National Party (presumably something about inappropriate interference, or upsetting (Todd McClay’s, Jian Yang’s, Peter Goodfellow’s friends in) Beijing).   Well, maybe, but I wouldn’t have thought Jenny Shipley, in her current position, is someone even National would want to touch with a barge pole.  Are those the sorts of business governance practices National wants to defend, in public?  I can’t imagine so.

And so if the Prime Minister won’t express concern about a senior figure, found to have grossly underperformed in a very prominent governance position, it risks looking as though (a) the Prime Minister isn’t bothered by such misconduct (generally) or (b) remains more interested in not upsetting friends of Beijing and Beijing’s sensitivities than about defending acceptable standards of corporate governance and decency here in New Zealand.  She associates herself with all the tawdriness of the China Council –  defences of Huawei, silence on Jian Yang, silence on Anne-Marie Brady, and a general reluctance ever to articulate New Zealand interests when, as inevitably happens, those sometimes clash with those of the PRC. Perhaps it buys her an easier life in the short-term.  In the longer-term it further corrodes whatever reputation for decency she might once have had.  It simply shouldn’t be in her interests, or that of the government, for Shipley to remain on the China Council board.  And no one really doubts that – as the agency holding the purse strings –  if she wanted Shipley gone she would very soon be gone.

Whatever other contributions Jenny Shipley may have made over the years, her record at Mainzeal now means that she diminishes the standing and reputation of any body or individual that continues to use her in governance roles, or which support her in such roles.  Foremost among those now, the Prime Minister and the China Council itself.   As one expert noted in the Dominion-Post this morning, the market has ways of taking care of these issues – Shipley (and her other fellow Mainzeal directors) might now struggle to get directors and officers liability insurance.   But those mechanisms can’t protect us when it comes to public bodies. Only leadership protects us there.  But at present there seems to be a void – an abdication – where leadership on this issue should be.

I did an interview with Morning Report on this issue this morning.  If they put the audio up I will link to it.  [UPDATE: In fact, here it is.]

UPDATE:  A reader has pointed me to where the constitution and rules of the China Council are online (details in a comment).  It appears that the Executive Board is self-selecting and self-perpertuating

The point remains that if the Prime Minister, representing by far the largest funder, wanted Shipley off the Executive Board (a) she would almost certainly be gone quite quickly, and (b) even if she wasn’t, the PM would have made clear her refusal to countenance the standards of corporate governance on display in the Mainzeal case.

There was a story on Stuff yesterday (in the Domininion-Post this morning) about Air New Zealand’s “generous provision” of free airfares to the New Zealand China Council.  The China Council, you will recall, is the largely taxpayer-funded propaganda body set up by the previous government to champion good and quiescent relationships with the party-State in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China.  “Good” relations with the PRC, of course, means never ever saying or doing anything they don’t like.  Friendships aren’t like that.

Air New Zealand’s funding for the China Council bothers me no more or less than the mindset that governs the whole relationship with the PRC, whether among officials, politicians, or business leaders (and if there are any exceptions, they keeep very very quiet).  It seems that, pure and simple, it is all about the money – whether trade deals, sales in the PRC, or the flow of political donations.  If Air New Zealand wants to fly to the PRC, it needs to keep sweet with the regime, and needs to keep the New Zealand government (and public) on the straight and narrow, not making difficulties for them, as far as possible.  If the China Council can help them do that, why wouldn’t they –  having decided to sup with the devil – provide support for those who can help their cause.  It isn’t done out of the goodness of their heart, but out of pretty cold commercial calculation.   And since the taxpayer has already been coerced to cover much of the China Council’s activities, it is probably pretty cheap PR expenditure.   Whether Air New Zealand is majority state-owned (as it is) or not isn’t really relevant.

I don’t suppose most people associated with the China Council really see themselves as getting involved to serve Beijing’s interests (there might be exceptions –  individuals on the Advisory Board with close ties to the regime, including its United Front organisations, and individuals on the Executive Board –  including our former Ambassador to the PRC and our former Prime Minister – who hold positions in regime bodies).  Probably most of them think of themselves as serving “New Zealand’s interests”, but people have a funny way of interpreting their own personal (or business) financial interests as being much the same thing as the “national interest”; perhaps the more so, more money is involved.  But whatever story they tell themselves, they nonetheless objectively do serve the PRC regime’s interests.  That is the effect of their involvement, their choices, their silence.

When you walk by evil every day, when your organisation exists to minimise and distract from evil, when you are indifferent to the values of New Zealanders, and the abuse of those values in the PRC, you serve the regime’s end.  It is as simple as that.  And for a regime that is among the most evil on the planet today –  certainly the most of evil of those who in any material way impinge on New Zealand.  Air New Zealand is part of that.  So are Don McKinnon, Jenny Shipley, Tony Browne, Grant Guilford, Cathy Quinn and the rest of them (including their hired gun and front person Stephen Jacobi).

I’m an economist by training, so I’m quite happy to sign up to the notion that trade is generally mutually beneficial for those directly participating.  But each of us, actively or passively, makes moral choices about those with whom we deal.   Big companies and their bosses, even more than individual citizens, have real and effective choices.  Those who associate themselves with a tawdry body like the China Council reveal the nature of their choices, of their values.

It is not as if the China Council exists to encourage real and open debate about the PRC and how New Zealand should engage with, respond to, and deal with it.   Such a body might, arguably, be a useful thing for taxpayers’ money to be spent on.   After all, it is a big country, and that sort of debate doesn’t even exist to any serious extent in our universities –  keen on their PRC students, (several) keen on the (PRC) Confucius Institutes, and where the Contemporary China Research Centre is chaired by someone who helps promote the regime agenda through the Confucius Institute movement.

But that isn’t the China Council.  The China Council is about keeping the (New Zealand) peasants in line and pandering to the regime in Beijing – that gala dinner, for example, for the new Ambassador.   To make out that the PRC is a normal, honourable and decent regime.

Where’s the evidence?   All around really.  Reports (pretty lightweight ones) championing one of the regime’s key geo-strategic initiative (the Belt and Road), public statements defending Huawei (and never any examination of the other side of that story), the constant attempts to trivialise –  or tar as racist or “xenophobic” –  any serious debate about the PRC and New Zealand.  This, as a reminder, was from their Annual Report last year

An, at times, unedifying debate about the extent of foreign influence in New Zealand risks unfairly targeting New Zealanders of Chinese descent

And you’ve never seen the China Council engage with the substance of Anne-Marie Brady’s work, never heard them express concern about the apparent threats to Brady’s physical safety, never heard them express concern about the regime control of most of the local Chinese language media, never ever heard them express concern about human rights abuses –  on the most egregious scale – in the PRC, and never heard them express concern about the growing evidence of PRC attempts to interfere in countries around the world, about the threat to Taiwan, or the militarisation of the South China Sea.  We’ve never heard them express concern about PRC attempts at economic coercion –  other perhaps than encouraging pre-emptive submission.  They just aren’t a serious body.  They are a cynical propaganda body –  largely paid for by your taxes and mine – serving the business interests of those involved, and –  in effect –  the wider interests of Beijing,  The test: when there has been any clash between the interests/values of the regime and the interests/values of New Zealanders, have they ever openly sided with the latter?  Not once (that I’m aware of).

If the private sector was stumping up all the funding for this lobbying and propaganda effort, we might just call it freedom of expression I suppose.  If you choose to sell your soul, then (within limits) I guess you can champion your cause.   As it is, taxpayers’ money –  and the choices of successive New Zealand governments –  is being used to serve the personal interests of these businesses, and of the political parties concerned.   I’m not suggesting private or public companies should be banned from doing business in the PRC, but they should be told much more than is common anywhere that they are on their own.  Dine with the devil if you must, be take a long spoon, and don’t be asking for support from the rest of New Zealand.   But we’d be better off as a country –  have rather greater moral clarity –  if there was less business undertaken with the PRC, given the nature of the regime.  There might be a modest economic cost –  but it would be modest – but let’s be grateful that business interests weren’t allowed to distract us from eventually standing up and taking on the Nazi regime 80 years ago.  The parallels with the PRC today are almost too numerous to list.

But, of course, it isn’t just businesses that have sold their souls.  Successive governments and political parties are at it too –  recall those National and Labour party presidents off in China praising the regime.  This one seems to be no different in substance.

Yesterday a local Labour Party supporter dropped into my letterbox a Labour brochure headed “Our plan for New Zealand”, replete with photos of the Prime Minister.  I might write about the (lack of) economic substance in another post, but what caught my eye was this page.

The Prime Minister promises to “make New Zealand proud”.  How?  “By continuing our tradition of standing up on the world stage and upholding our values”.

And we are supposed to take this seriously?  A Prime Minister who will not talk openly about Xinjiang, who will not talk openly about the abducted Canadians, who will not talk openly about the militarisation of the South China Sea or the growing threat to Taiwan, who will not talk openly about the regime’s intellectual property theft, who says nothing about Jian Yang, who never utters a word about the sustained persecution of Falun Gong followers, Christian believers, civil rights activists and so on, and who won’t even stand up pro-actively in defence of Anne-Marie Brady.  If she herself won’t speak about, she also shows no sign of welcoming or encouraging those who do.

She probably isn’t any worse than the other lot (Todd McClay and the “vocational training centres” that are really no concern of ours), although her approach is made all the more nauseating by the pretence to representing something better –  all that talk of kindness, empathy, values, and so on.   The best test of a person’s values is how they choose to act.  Evidence to date is that our Prime Minister shares much the same “values” as the China Council –  don’t rock the boat, never stand for anything other than commercial interests (and party donations).  What you won’t pay a price for is in no serious sense a “value”.

I read this morning an article from the Italian site Bitter Winter.   Perhaps I could commend an article like this to the Prime Minister and to Mr Jacobi (or to Simon Bridges, Christopher Luxon, Don McKinnon, Tony Browne, Jenny Shipley, Jian Yang, Raymond Huo and the others).

One Christian who was previously assigned to work in a brick kiln described his working environment. “The brick kiln’s temperature can reach 60 or 70 degrees Celsius (about 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit). If prisoners are careless, they will be scalded, and their hair will be scorched. The prison authorities do not provide temperature-resistant shoes. Prisoners must stand on one foot, shifting from the left to the right. If someone spends too long on one foot, he will get burned and develop blisters. New prisoners couldn’t even last for five seconds before having to run out of the kiln. But whenever the manager saw someone running out, he would flog them with a pipe.”

Heavy labor made this Christian think about death. One time, after he tried to commit suicide, the team leader disciplined him by beating him and shocking him with an electric baton.

The living conditions in prisons are deplorable. Prisoners often eat vegetable-leaf soup with insects floating in it. As a result of malnutrition, they often feel dizzy and do not have the strength to work.

To ensure that prisoners complete their work even when physically exhausted, the prison authorities resort to torture.

The interviewees report that prison guards incite the more vicious prisoners to discipline other inmates. Thus, it is common to be beaten by “prison bullies” when someone fails to complete the task. Mr. Zhu told Bitter Winter, “If a prisoner cannot complete their task, the prison guards will tie the prisoner’s hands and feet to an iron fence, and they are forced to stand continuously except during meals. Whether in winter or summer, they remain continually tied up for three or four days and aren’t allowed to sleep.” In order to avoid corporal punishment, Mr. Zhu had to work hard to complete his production task.

I don’t suppose any of those people would be comfortable reading this sort of stuff (perhaps Jian Yang would be different –  he actually worked for the regime for years) but squirming slightly uncomfortably as you read it means nothing if you don’t –  when you can – do or say something.  There are plenty of areas in which I disagree with much of the consensus opinion of those who hold power in New Zealand, but what really upsets me about the PRC issue is the utter practical indifference to stuff these people all individually and privately know and agree is evil; stuff they’d not even considering supporting here.  And yet each of them choose –  by their actions and their passivity –  to give cover to such evil, on large scale and small.   They compromise themselves –  and they take our money to do it.

One day, I guess, they’ll be judged before the bar of history –  as the appeasers of the 1930s, the fellow-travellers with the Soviet Union were – but in the meantime I guess they’ll keep the dollars (deals and donations) flowing.  And evil will prosper just a little more because of choices those people make.

There was interesting Herald story a couple of weeks ago suggesting that the National Party may be beginning to feel some heat about their affiliations with, and excuses for, and funds flowing from, the People’s Republic of China (or people with close associations thereto).    The story drew on a speech given by National’s spokesman on electoral law, longserving MP Nick Smith,  to the Nelson Rotary Clubs.  In that speech Nick Smith argued as follows

4.2 Banning Foreign Donations

The second change I want to promote is a ban on foreign donations. This proposal was floated by former Attorney General and SIS Minister Chris Finlayson in his valedictory speech last month with him forcefully arguing that New Zealand’s democracy is ours and should not be open to manipulation by any foreign influence. This risk has been highlighted in recent overseas elections.

The existing electoral law does put limits on foreign donors, but needs strengthening. Only kiwi citizens and residents should be able to donate to political parties or to campaigns that seek to influence an election outcome.

Such a change would need to be done with finesse so as not to discourage political participation by new New Zealanders. The issue is not about ethnicity. It is about New Zealand not allowing its democracy to be inappropriately influenced by overseas interests.

It isn’t that I disagree with Nick Smith on this specific, just that in raising it (and not other issues around electoral donations) he seems to be avoiding –  probably consciously and deliberately – some of the real specific issues that are apparent in New Zealand.

The Herald article summarised the current law this way

Current electoral law prohibits non-citizens or residents from donating more than $1500 to political parties, but these can be avoided by donating through New Zealand-registered corporate entities – such as companies, incorporated societies and trusts – which are allowed to donate regardless of whether they are owned or controlled by New Zealanders.

and in a recent commentary, Simon Chapple, director of Victoria University’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies observed

Currently in New Zealand foreign donations to a party of up to NZ$1,500 are permissible. Moreover, foreign donations below this amount are not individually or collectively disclosed.

It would be easy for a foreign state or corporate body seeking political influence to channel a large number of donations into the system just under the threshold via numerous proxies. Whether such interference has been happening is unclear, since New Zealanders do not know how much money currently comes in to political parties via foreign actors.

Even if foreign donations are not a problem now, one could rapidly develop. A strong argument can be made that foreign money has no place in democracy, including New Zealand’s.

New Zealand would not be going out on an international limb by banning foreign donations. Foreign donations to political parties are not permissible in the [United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States. They are also banned in Canada but unfortunately a significant loophole exists. Australia is currently in the process of banning foreign donations.

And I’d certainly agree with Simon on that general point: foreign money should have no place in funding election campaigns or political parties.

So there probably is a good case for a blanket prohibition on donations (in cash or in kind) to political parties by non-resident non-citizens.  But that looks mostly like pre-emptively closing a possible source of a problem (although perhaps real in the case of Phil Goff’s last mayoral campaign) –  and thus looking as though you care –  when the real actual issues New Zealand faces in this area would not be addressed at all.   For example, the largest single (acknowledged) donation to the National Party a couple of years ago was from a New Zealand registered company owned and controlled by a PRC billionaire.  That is foreign money in New Zealand politics, and shouldn’t be allowed.  It would be bad enough if it were from donors in countries that generally shared New Zealand values and democratic norms.   It is far worse when the donor is from the PRC – or, if you like, North Korea, Equatorial Guinea or other repressive authoritarian states –  and (according to the media coverage) clearly in the good graces of Xi Jinping.   Personally, I would probably favour banning all corporate donations to political parties –  people are citizens, companies aren’t –  but at very least we should apply the same restrictions to foreign-controlled companies that we apply to non-resident non-citizen individual donations.

But laws can take you only so far, and I’m not convinced they can deal with what appears to be the rather bigger issue around New Zealand political party financing (probably mainly National, although it seems likely that Labour now in government will be seeking to get in on the act).   That requires decency, integrity, and a willingness to make a sacrifice –  in this case, not to take money from people –  not even New Zealand citizens or residents – with close associations with, declared support for, political regimes with values so inimical to, and inconsistent with, those that have underpinned New Zealand democracy, and its fairly free and open society.

It seems to be widely understood that National Party Jian Yang is the party’s biggest single fundraiser.  Jian Yang, as is now widely known, served in PLA overseas intelligence system and was (perhaps is) a CCP member, who eventually acknowledged that he misrepresented his past to get residency and citizenship in New Zealand. In all his years in Parliament he has never once criticised the PRC –  not even over Tiananmen Square (perhaps there is an opportunity for him on the 30th anniversary in a few months time) – he is observed to be very close to the PRC Embassy, and even a former diplomat (now a lobbyist, so hardly someone deliberately trying to stir up trouble) declared that he was always very careful what he said in front of Jian Yang.    It is, to put it mildly, hard to be confident that he is primarily serving the interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders.

I’ve noted previously comments made last year by serious senior people at a Chatham House rules event I was invited to

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

These will probably (almost) all be donations made by New Zealand citizens or residents, and nothing in what Nick Smith (or Chris Finlayson) was saying would even touch on them.

And thus late last year, Yikun Zhang sprang to brief public prominence, when Jami-Lee Ross revealed the tape-recording of his discussion with Simon Bridges about the $100000 donation(s), and the possible bid by one of Yikun Zhang’s associates for a place on National’s list.   I’m not mostly concerned with the question of whether this donation (or set of donations) was appropriately disclosed –  although in general I think there is a strong case for a lower, and more binding, disclosure threshold, tying all material donations back to identifiable natural persons –  but about the affiliations and identifications of Yikun Zhang and his associates.  We learned at the time the story broke that Yikun Zhang – despite being a long-time New Zealand resident (and citizen) doesn’t speak English.  We learned a lot about his involvement –  at senior levels –  in various United Front bodies, and the strong ties he appears to have with CCP entities back in the PRC.  It is, to put it mildly, hard for a dispassionate observer to be confident that he primarily has at heart the interests of New Zealand and New Zealanders.   Given the nature of the regime he enthusiastically and repeatedly assoicates with, no decent political party should voluntarily have any but the most formal relations with such a person, and certainly shouldn’t be soliciting money from, or through them.  It isn’t what decent people, with any regard for the integrity of our system, do.

In fact, of course, not only do they take his money, but Phil Goff, Jian Yang, and former National MP Eric Roy got together to nominate Yikun Zhang for an honour, something bestowed last year by the current government.  In effect, it appears, for services to one of the more evil –  most evil, judged by the numbers it rules –  regimes on the planet.

And of course we know that not just MPs but party officials seem to fall over themselves to praise that same regime, and run interference whenever there is a suggestion of problems (think of Todd McClay running Beijing propaganda lines about “vocational training camps in Xinjiang).  Peter Goodfellow, the National Party president, seems to work very closely with Jian Yang to pander to the regime, and keep the local donation flow going.  And on the Labour side, Nigel Haworth seemed to be little better.

So by all means, take up the specific suggestion to ban completely foreign donations.  It would be a small improvement on the current situation, but it would not even begin to tackle the deep corruption of the our political system around the PRC regime.  People who were long-serving senior ministers – Nick Smith and Chris Finlayson –  know that very well, even if they are genuinely well-meaning on their specific proposal.

But attempting to fool the public otherwise seems to be a bit of new theme.  That Herald story where I first saw reference to Nick Smith’s speech included this gem

In a related move, Parliament’s justice select committee have issued a rare invitation to the country’s intelligence agencies to give a – likely closed-doors and secret – briefing to MPs about “foreign interference” in local elections.

Nick Smith, a member of the committee and his party’s spokesperson for electoral law reform, confirmed the committee as a whole late last year sent a letter to the New Zealand Security and Intelligence Service (NZSIS) and Government Communications and Security Bureau (GCSB) inviting them to give evidence.

Smith yesterday said he hoped the NZSIS and GCSB would be able to provide insight on the local risks posed by issues such as the hacking the public officials’ communications, foreign donations, and anonymous and politicised social media campaigns.

“There is the issue of funding, and whether foreign governments are either directly, or indirectly through shelf companies, are using funds to inappropriately influence outcomes,” he said.

Smith said the invitation to the NZSIS and GCSB offered evidence to be given in secret if required. He conceded this would be an unusual move for usually-open committee meetings, but was justified: “I think this is a really important issue,” he said.

So a committee chaired by Raymond Huo, he of various United Front bodies, he who chose a slogan of Xi Jinping’s for Labour Chinese-language compaign in 2017, with a senior National MP promoting only the narrowest reform (while providing cover for Jian Yang) will invite the intelligence agencies to provide advice on foreign influence issues, but in secret.   Perhaps –  but only perhaps, because the fact of this hearing might be used to simply play distraction – it is marginally better than nothing, but we don’t need intelligence agencies to tell us there is an issue around the PRC. Both main parties know what they are doing –  who they associate with, who they take money from, who they honour, who they seek closer relations with, and who they refuse ever to criticise, no matter how egregious the regime’s abuses.  All the minor parties keep quiet and go along too.

There was column this week on Newsroom by political scientist Bryce Edwards argues that it is “urgent” that we start having a proper debate in New Zealand about the PRC and the relationship with New Zealand.   I don’t really disagree with him, although he seems to want an “elite” debate, and seems scared by the idea that the public might have a (strong) view (an “overly simplistic one” apparently, like ideas of good and evil perhaps?).

Edwards writes

Obviously, we can’t rely on the politicians to lead that [debate] – they’re too compromised, and they’re just too inclined to suppress the discussion. Instead it has to be other parts of the public sphere – especially the media and other public figures – that needs to step up to examine and discuss the issues.

But it seems like wishful thinking.  Sure there is the occasional voice from the margins –  whether Edwards or Anne-Marie Brady – but there doesn’t seem any sign that anyone in “elite New Zealand”, anyone who commands serious respect, is about to break ranks from the “keep quiet, keep the deals and donations flowing” sickening consensus of the last few decades.  Not former leading politicians, not church leaders, not leading business figures, no one.  Even if a few people mutter quietly –  even Fran O’Sullivan had some recent encouraging comments about donations – no one seriously breaks ranks.   The taxpayer even funds bodies that condemn taking action on Huawei.  So who does Edwards seriously think might lead such a debate?

As he says, all politicians have all sold their souls.  I was exchanging notes earlier this week with someone about Jian Yang.  It is easy to blame John Key and Peter Goodfellow for Jian Yang –  they either knew his background or should have, and didn’t really care (or worse) either way.  But the story of Jian Yang has been public for almost 18 months now and no one in politics has disowned him, called for his resignation, called for the National Party to remove him from their caucus.  Not Jacinda Ardern or Andrew Little, certainly not Bill English or Simon Bridges, not James Shaw or Marama Davidson, not David Seymour, not even (despite occasional timorous hints) Winston Peters.  Not even Jami-Lee Ross, who was at the centre of the whole donations business.  Not a single backbencher, of any party, was willing to break ranks and declare the situation unacceptable.  Fixed with knowledge, by their silence they now share responsibility.

It is little different on any of the other aspects of the PRC relationships:

• the effective PRC control of the local Chinese language media,
• the refusal to say a word about the Xinjiang abuses (or Falun Gong or Christian churches),
• the refusal to say anything in support of Canada over the abduction of two of its nationals.

Probably most of these so-called leaders like to think they are somehow serving New Zealand interests.  People fool themselves that way, sometimes without necessarily fully realisng what they are doing.  They aren’t.

So, much as Bryce Edwards might deplore the prospect of an “overly-simplistic” serious public debate, or swelling tide of discontent, I’d cheer on the fact that it was happening at all.  Corrupted systems are rarely, if ever, upended and reformed without a strong strand of –  almost unreasonable –  public outrage.  It hasn’t happened here yet.  I’d like to say it was only a matter of time, but I’m a pessimist.    What would turn things around now after all these years in which our “elites” have degraded our political system (to complement their failures on other fronts, notably productivity)?  Labour and National are, after all, two sides of same coin on such issues, and together they seem to have a stronger hold on the political system (vote share combined) than we’ve seen for some decades.   We don’t have politicians of decency and integrity, and the public show little sign of (effectively) demanding something different.  The PRC Embassy must be pleased.

UPDATe (4/2):   There is a new column by Simon Chapple and a co-author on reviewing the rules around political donations.  I’m pretty sympathetic to the sorts of changes they propose, although as I argue above the PRC-influence issues around donations or more about atttitudes and integrity –  knowing what is right and wrong and eschewing the latter –  than something formal external (eg statutory) rules can deal with.