New Zealand’s most important trading partner is also the nation’s biggest security headache, according to a new risk-assessment report produced by the country’s security intelligence service, or SIS. The government agency sees espionage activities orchestrated by Beijing as a ‘complex intelligence concern’ for a country that has become highly dependent on China for its economic health.
The baleful assessment appears in the SIS’s latest annual security threat environment report. While the 48-page briefing highlights a raft of other related issues such as Moscow meddling in the lives of Russian-born New Zealand residents or else officially banning local journalists (including this writer) from travelling to the Russian Federation, a lion’s share of the latest attention is on the threat allegedly posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Publicising these concerns is a new twist on the old problem
In particular, the new report accuses China of ‘foreign interference activities against New Zealand’s diverse Chinese communities’.
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