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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

McKinnon ends with two more incredible comments.  The first was

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

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

And at the very end

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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