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5:16 pm, June 6th, 2026 - 15 comments
Categories: australian politics, China, chris hipkins, culture, Deep stuff, Diplomacy, exports, FiveEyes, Free Trade, helen clark, human rights, nuclear-free, Peace, Propaganda, Spying, trade, Xi Jinping -
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FiveEyes issues warning re possible Chinese intelligence recruiting methods! Beware! China issues warning re already recruited anti-China MPs. Cue shock horror!
The FiveEyes panui looks impressive:
In an article headlined “Several New Zealanders almost gave sensitive information to China, SIS boss says,” SIS supremo Andrew Hamilton is less definitive about the threat. That almost is important: Hamilton is saying that the transfer of sensitive information hasn’t actually happened here.
…there have been instances in New Zealand over the last couple of years where individuals have unwittingly been pulled into engaging with what we now know as the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] military intelligence,” he said.”That’s a real concern in terms of espionage.”
Hampton said the SIS had investigated “several” cases in the last three or four years, but would not specify how many. “In the investigations that we have been involved with, we have been able to head off the activity before it got to the point where any sensitive information had been passed over,” he said.
The FiveEyes statement just happens (call me if you want to buy a bridge) to come on top of a revelation in New Zealand that China has sanctioned four New Zealand MPs for visiting Taiwan. The MPs in question will not be allowed to visit China for a year, but this dreadfully onerous punishment can be removed if an apology is forthcoming.
How dare they sanction our MPs I hear you cry. It didn’t take me long to work out the reason: I just searched on ‘Duncan Webb IPAC’ and sure enough there he was. ACT MP Laura McClure was also on the delegation. She too is an IPAC member.
IPAC stands for the Interparliamentary Alliance on China. It was founded by then-Senator now US Secretary-of-State Marco Rubio in 2020. It is a collection of self-selected MPs in various countries, mostly Western. It originally received funding from the US National Endowment for Democracy – “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA” in the words of Allan Weinstein, a previous chairman. The NED has now been folded into the US State Department so who it funds is now no longer accessible, but Rubio has even more control over the funds.
IPAC should better be called the InterParliamentary alliance Against China. Its target is the Communist Party government of China. It also receives funds from Taiwanese government sources, and is effectively now also a Taiwanese lobby in opposition to the one-China principle supported by most governments around the world including New Zealand. It should not be a surprise to anyone, least of all to MPs Duncan Webb and Laura McClure, that the Chinese government and their embassy here have some objection to its activities.
What IPAC’s existence demonstrates is that “the recruiting and cultivation of long-term relationships” with individuals such as “academics, journalists, freelance writers, think tank employees” is not limited to China. The United States does it too, in this case indirectly through its proxy. Academic Professor Anne-Marie Brady is listed on the IPAC website as one of its official advisors, and appears frequently in the media to provide negative comment about China. She is not alone.
This type of activity is also not new. One of my jobs when I worked for the Labour Party between 1984 and 1987 as the Trade Union Liaison Officer was to head off the activities of Greg Talcott, the CIA operative in the US Embassy, who was seeking to influence opposition to our nuclear-free policy among New Zealand trade union officials by also sponsoring visits to what was popularly called the AFL-CIA. Former MP and former High commissioner to Canada Graham Kelly describes these activities in his memoir Keeping the Party in Tune. My parting gift from the Party was Bob Woodward’s book Veil:The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987.
So what to make of the Chinese sanction? Speaking to Guyon Espiner on Radio New Zealand yesterday, Anna Fifield correctly identified it as a warning.
Fifield did not mention IPAC, although she did use a meme also used by Brady that China has never ruled Taiwan! Japan did so after the Sino-Japanese war in the early twentieth century, but nobody would consider that gave Japan a right to rule Taiwan again. Espiner a couple of years ago fronted the dreadful Radio New Zealand four-part podcast Red Line, also featuring Brady. By their memes shall you know them.
As warnings go, this recent episode is best described as a soft tap on the wrist for New Zealand. The commenters also correctly identified it as a change on the part of China, but limited themselves to saying that it means China is becoming more “aggressive.” I think that is superficial, and misses what is changing in the world, and potentially in our relationship with China.
Our official relationship can be characterised as transactional, summarised as co-operate where we can, criticise where we think we must. It is usually described as long-standing; in my opinion in what our leaders have described as a perilous world, it is high time it was reviewed. Our culture and values are different from China’s; ours are not necessarily superior.
There is perhaps a hint of what may be involved in this comment from Pacific Polarity regarding the recent Shangri-La conference and China’s low-level appearance there:
There is a diminishing pool of Chinese elites who see value in strategic discussions with Western middle powers. China has largely concluded that these countries are tied at the hip to America, that their domestic pro-American constituencies are too strong and too entrenched, and that they will continue trying to hug America tighter even as America walks away. The whole point of strategic dialogues, as Shangri-La aspires to be, is either to understand or to influence someone else’s strategic intentions. China believes it already knows what Western middle powers want, and also believes they are not for turning, so what is the point of further dialogue? The discussions at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue certainly did little to disabuse Beijing of that impression.
That is not good news for New Zealand, given that we are merely a middle power’s hanger-on.
We had a very good relationship with China in the days of the Helen Clark-led Labour government and have benefited enormously from China’s first FTA negotiated then. Chinese have long memories, and New Zealand has long stood in high regard there, shown by the frequent mentions of China-famous Kiwi Rewi Alley by Ambassador Wang Xiaolong in various speeches here. President Xi Jinping offered Chris Hipkins the hand of friendship when he visited China in 2023 as Prime Minister.
We are definitely at a turning point. We do not have to be tied at the hip to America, as our Australian ally and some in our Foreign Ministry and our Security Intelligence Service are. The public warning issued by Hampton as directed by the Five Eyes was not necessary here as no evidence of the behaviour warned against had been found.
Regarding our relationship with China, the official Chinese news identified Taiwan as a red line for China. The warning was a friendly one, but we should not be fooled.
Looking a gift horse in the mouth is bad enough; spurning what’s on offer would be disastrous.
Looking a gift horse in the mouth is bad enough, but spurning it would be disastrous.
Only two countries have ever banned New Zealand Members of Parliament: China and Russia. Not the United States.
Our Minister of Foreign Affairs is responding in precisely the right way with China.
New Zealand has banned politicians from Iran, Israel, and Russia in the last decade. Which was entirely justified.
What is remarkable is that our relationship with China is strong enough to not affect our export or import trade with them at all.
That should tell you that we have friends that back us, and China gets that. Unlike all the other small states China pushes around with near impugnity.
I'm as sceptical about American foreign policy, influence operations, intelligence overreach, and geopolitical hypocrisy as anyone else. But I don't think CCP apologetics is a correct, realistic, or helpful response.
Yes, the US conducts foreign influence operations. China does the same.
Yes, the US has violated international law. China also does so.
Yes, the US uses economic coercion and strategic pressure against allies and rivals alike. China does too.
The existence of Western hypocrisy does not magically transform the Chinese state into a benign alternative. It is still an authoritarian one-party state that represses dissent, aggressively polices civil society, and is increasingly willing to use economic and military pressure against its neighbours when it suits its interests.
I also think this framing understates the substantive reasons many democracies are increasingly wary of Beijing: repression in Xinjiang, the dismantling of freedoms in Hong Kong, pressure on Taiwan, militarisation in the South China Sea, transnational repression, and extensive state-directed influence operations abroad.
We can understand the CCP’s historical context, strategic anxieties, and worldview without accepting its conduct or treating it as merely defensive.
China is not uniquely evil. But neither is the United States uniquely evil either.
Both are powerful states pursuing their interests through influence, coercion, alliances, trade, intelligence networks, and strategic pressure. Neither deserves uncritical loyalty. Neither should be analysed through mythology.
The mistake is assuming that criticism of American power automatically makes Chinese power benign, defensive, or morally superior.
It does not.
New Zealand should pursue an independent foreign policy grounded in realism, democratic values, and our own interests. But independence is not the same thing as reflexive anti-Americanism, nor does it require pretending authoritarian behaviour stops being authoritarian when the West also behaves hypocritically.
The world is more complicated than "America bad, therefore China reasonable."
I largely agree with what you have written. The angle that is missing is that the US, used to being the superpower since the fall of the wall, is on a very worrying trajectory.
A very divided, polarised population and institutions. Debt way past their eyeballs. Crumbling infrastructure. A government and politicians serving business interests. A leadership team that seems to have no medium term startegy that is putting its traditional allies offside.
While it may be a little early to describe the US as 'failed state', they are certainly headed that way.
Our morally bankrupt leader wanting to suck up and echo support for the Israel/US attacks on Iran and the mealy mouthed objections to latest round of horror in Palestine do not represent the views of the people on the street.
An unhealthy position to be in.
Pray do tell ResPublica, about a complicated world. There is a lot going on, and in my opinion the equivalences you draw are just a lot of straw persons. It is the future we need to worry about. New Zealand is not threatened by China, it is not obstructing our trade with tariffs. The US/Israel invasion of Iran will cause enormous damage to oujr economy and to those of the world.
I don’t think I’m arguing against a strawman. My point is simply that criticism of US power does not require minimising or rationalising authoritarian behaviour by other great powers.
A truly independent foreign policy is one that allows us to hold the US to account for its behaviour, as only a friend and ally realistically can, while also preserving our ability to stand up for our own democratic values where they differ from China’s.
That means being capable of criticising American wars, intelligence overreach, or economic coercion without collapsing into the view that Chinese state behaviour is therefore largely defensive, misunderstood, or unproblematic.
To me, independence means retaining the ability to disagree with both.
And while we should absolutely be realistic about the future, realism also means recognising that whatever its many failings, moral contradictions, and political dysfunctions, the United States is likely to remain the world's pre-eminent power for a long time yet.
People often compare the US to the decline and fall of Rome. In some respects the analogy is useful. But they also forget that Rome's decline unfolded over centuries, not election cycles. Rome remained one of the dominant powers of the Mediterranean world deep into late antiquity.
Predictions of imminent American collapse have a long history of being wrong.
Major study shows world sees USA as biggest threat, and prefers China
A global survey found people in most countries see the United States as the biggest threat to the world, and prefer China over the US. These are the results of the EU-backed Democracy Perception Index
https://www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/study-world-usa-biggest-threat-china
And your point is…?
The USA has 750 – 800 military bases in different countries around the world. China has two. – in Djibouti and a Naval base in Cambodia.
Thanks Mike! Always good to get a bit of context and a fuller picture.
The same Coalition of Cockups, that want to spend more on weapons to "defend against China", are relaxing foriegn investor rules to make it easier for China to buy NZ……
The cognotive dissonance is frightening!
Still makes me laugh. We’re exactly the same.
https://youtu.be/sgspkxfkS4k?si=7fn1cjaPyBLvWVZG
Utopia has to be one of the best observed, well written comedies.
There is a touch of John Clarke about it too.
That piece in particular hits the nail on the head.
It is internationally accepted by the vast majority of countries that Taiwan is part of China. Though some people would prefer that the government of China be in the hands of the Kuomintang rather than the Communist Party of China.
Unfortunately for them, in 1949 the Communist Party of China, after decades of warfare against both Japanese Imperialism and the right-wing KMT, prevailed in the field and the KMT leadership fled to Formosa – taking over the government of the island from control of the locals.
New Zealand MPs must know that if they want to visit Queensland, NSW, Victoria, et al, they need permission from the Australian federal government – not the state government. They apply for and may be granted a visa.
They're being disingenuous {downright sly} to pretend that they are just doing their job. Who are they really working for? Representing their constituents or just being provocateurs in the interest of foreign powers?
You need a better example. No NZ MP needs to apply for a visa to visit Australia or any individual state therein (nor do most other Kiwis – absent a criminal conviction)
And, preferentially an example where the local/smaller state denies that it belongs as part of the larger state, and is not physically constrained. No matter how independent Queenslanders think they are, they don't deny they are part of Australia. Whereas the Taiwanese are adamant that they are not part of China.
Palestine/Left Bank and Israel would be a closer example. Although Israel physically controls access. How about Sudan with the SAF/RSF controlled spheres. Or, going back a bit, Timor L'Este (while it was part of Indonesia).
Our culture and values are superior, because you're free to say in public that they're not.