New Zealand faces the “most challenging national security environment of recent times”, the country’s intelligence agency said in an annual risk assessment.
Key drivers of the deteriorating threat environment were less stable relationships between states, deepening polarisation and growing grievances.
Though several states seek to manipulate New Zealand’s government and society, China remains the “most active”, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service said.
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New Zealand’s spy agency specifically accused China’s United Front Work Department of engaging in foreign interference to build influence outside of China.
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China is a “particularly assertive and powerful actor”, seeking to extend and embed its influence across the region, the report said.
“It has demonstrated both a willingness and capability to undertake intelligence activity that targets New Zealand’s national interests.”
Without naming countries, the intelligence service highlighted the routine use of “transnational repression” by foreign states, often by co-opting people to collect information about someone within their own diaspora living in New Zealand.
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There were many claims made in the recent past and I did look into them quite a bit. I found a ton of accusations by Falun Gong and associated organizations which were being amplified by various right wing think tanks and media but I found absolutely no actual evidence of anything even remotely resembling genocide. There were some police actions in the xian region because the government claimed terrorism was going on and there were some reports of people being imprisoned without proper trials and such but no genocide or anything remotely like it.
In the past few months I have seen dozens of videos of travel vloggers on youtube as they have travelled to Uyghur semi autonomous regions and from what they show life in those areas are not different than any other areas of China. Some of these people are quite anti chinese too so I was shocked that they could not find any kind of genocide or oppression of the uyghurs. Even claims of suppression of language and culture are clearly not true as signs are all in dual languages and many cultural activities are taking place.
Compare that to horrific, sickening, disgusting, rage inducing images and videos coming out of gaza and there is no comparison at all. I have seen images I will never forget, beheaded babies, children crying while looking at their sister whose body has been cut in half, parents pulling out pieces of their children from the rubble, journalists burning alive in tents, mothers and children cowering huddled in a corner listening to the bombs falling outside, journalists being shot and killed, soldiers shooting and killing people scrambling to get a little bit a flour, and much much worse.
It’s disgusting what the USA, Israel and Europe are doing in Gaza.
People are being arrested in the UK for sitting down in a public place and holding a sign. I saw video of a person being arrested in Germany for having a sticker on their car that said “from the river to the sea”.
We live in a sick world and there is nothing more sick than the so called judeo christian values and the western civilization.
Agreed, they are completely different levels.
Interesting to hear you couldn’t substantiate the claims, though (I’ve not dug into it myself)
As I said there were some documented acts of terrorism like actions by some Uyghur factions. Some Chinese official or another was killed. The police and the military conducted a series of actions in the region including arrests of lots of people many of whom I am sure were not guilty of anything. They were arresting people for being collaborators and such. I am also pretty certain those people didn’t get fair trials either even though of course I have no access to the case files or the transcripts or anything like that. I just know how governments act when they crack down on insurgents and protestors.
Although all of that is unjust and condemnable it’s not genocide by any definition.
In any case it’s certainly not happening now. Things seem have calmed down significantly in the last five or six years and xian has had a lot of investment from the central government because it’s a crucial part of the belt and road initiative.
We don’t really know what happens in China. We know that they execute a decent number of people but it’s not clear how many executions and what the reasons are. Totally agree with you on Gaza.