Wait, what?
Government officials unconcerned after probing claims of Chinese police station in NZ
National security officials appear unconcerned after investigating claims of a Chinese police station operating in New Zealand.
A Madrid-based human rights organisation, Safeguard Defenders, published a report late in 2021 listing countries that Chinese police authorities had claimed to maintain posts in, including New Zealand.
In December, national security officials said the Safeguard Defenders report would be reviewed, but the Government did not have any evidence suggesting such a police station operated in New Zealand.
This investigation has now concluded, but the outcome will not be made public.
…wait, wait – what?
You won’t make the report public?
Why not?
The accusation is that the Chinese are running a Police station on NZ soil, an accusation that has been levelled against them around the world after a major investigation…
Chinese ‘police centre’ in NZ tied to businessman
News that Chinese authorities are allegedly operating an overseas police centre in New Zealand has left officials here scrambling to find out more. Now, Newsroom can reveal the centre’s location, as well as its ties to a businessman with United Front ties – who says he is only a volunteer helping Chinese Kiwis
A clandestine Chinese police centre allegedly operating in New Zealand has links to a businessman who has rubbed shoulders with senior Kiwi politicians, a Newsroom investigation can reveal.
The man has denied working for Chinese police, saying he is merely an unpaid volunteer helping to connect Chinese New Zealanders in need of assistance with authorities back home.
The Government is currently carrying out a multi-agency probe into claims about the centre’s operations, first disclosed in a report by an international NGO earlier this month.
Newsroom has now uncovered further information about the alleged non-official police presence – including its apparent location at one point – from Chinese-language media and websites.
In 2020, a post on state-owned tech giant Tencent’s QQ platform by the Nantong Public Security Bureau, which is run through the Ministry of Public Security, openly advertised the presence of Chinese police activity in several nations, asking its readers to “please keep” a list of addresses of its overseas ‘service centres’ around the world.
Among 29 addresses on the list, spanning multiple continents, is a location on Great South Road in the Auckland suburb of Epsom – within a five-minute drive of both the city’s Chinese consulate and the University of Auckland’s Epsom campus. It is unclear whether the centre is still operating from that address.
A mirror of the same piece, also attributed to a verified Nantong Public Security Bureau account, was found in a popular China-based news and information portal The Paper.
The Epsom electorate has the fifth-highest Asian population among New Zealand’s 72 electorates, at 34.8 percent compared with 15.1 percent across the country as a whole according to the 2018 Census.
The Auckland site is linked to Chinese businessman Zhou Jiexiang, who holds a number of political roles in the country and appears to be tied to the Chinese Communist Party’s controversial United Front operations.
…like so many attempts to exert influence into NZ, it is a via the form of a Businessman…
‘Chinese investor very popular with govt in NZ’
A 2017 article from a Jiangsu TV station announced Nantong police had granted “coordinator certificates” for overseas branch centres in seven countries, including New Zealand. The piece shows a man resembling Zhou holding one such certificate in a group photograph commemorating the development.
Companies Office records name Zhou as the owner of a business at the same address as the police service centre in 2017; it remains the registered office address of a company in which Zhou owns a personal stake. The remaining shares are owned by Nantong Jinshi, a Chinese company.
In a 2019 post by a verified account of the CCP’s Nantong City Propaganda Department, Zhou was in the running to be named one of the most praiseworthy United Front figures with ties to Nantong prefecture, noting his work helping elderly members of the Overseas Chinese community, and his ties to the Nantong Jinshi company.
A 2020 profile of Zhou on an NZ Chinese-language news site lists his senior position in a host of United Front bodies, including as a Nantong and Haian committee member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
A report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2020 described the CPPCC, which officially acts as an advisory body and includes members of the eight legally permitted minor parties in China, as “the most important United Front forum” due to its role in controlling political representation in diaspora Chinese communities.
In October this year, Zhou authored a piece hosted on the Chinese website Meipian, celebrating the CCP’s 20th Congress and declaring that “overseas Chinese [will] continue to unite closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core”.
In 2016, he was pictured alongside Auckland Mayor Phil Goff at a ceremony to celebrate the launch of the Nantong Association of New Zealand, while a 2022 story on Zhou included a photograph with former prime minister Sir John Key.
A separate article in 2021 described Zhou as “a Chinese investor who is very popular with the government in New Zealand”, further noting he had been invited to a “small private dinner” hosted by Key while he was still prime minister “to discuss investment in New Zealand.”
…right, so despite all this, the Officials have ‘investigated’ and found that our largest trading partner isn’t operating a Police station on NZ soil, because if it had found a Police station on NZ soil, that would represent the most serious diplomatic crisis between NZ and China ever.
Was there a Station and the Chinese closed it down under an agreement we wouldn’t comment publicly and embarrass them?
Did they threaten trade if we said anything publicly?
Is the Station there but you have 5 Eyes on it and are using it as an Intelligence spying operation?
What we have here is an enormous amount of smoke and Officials assuring us that there is no fire at all.
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I think the fact that there are American spies- from a country that has murdered millions of people just for fun this century alone- who have diplomatic cover in New Zealand who could murder a New Zealander at any point and get away with it, as Anne Sacoolas did in the UK, is a little more concerning than some lies about some Chinese cultural centre cooked up by Falun Gong kooks.
Last century, this one has barely begun.
Oh, they did tens of millions last century.
They were all bad people, and mostly foreign.
At least Anne Sacoolas disn’t blame the dead black guy and then have the media back home play cheerleaders and excusing them for fleeing justice, as the missionaries from Tauranga’s Bethlehem College did.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/editorials/8243988/Kenya-crash-cover-up
If you needed to know, you would have been told.
Citizen? The other two countries on planet Earth that allow non-citizens to vote are Malawi and Chile, and that is after a number of years residency. Foreign residents in No Zealand get voting rights after 12 months. nation-ending lunacy and, frankly, outright treason.
Qualifying Commonwealth citizens can vote in the UK.
And the UK.
Nothing to see here, was one of his favourite lines.
Neither the left political class nor the right political class will do anything to upset the Chinese, or the US Americans for that matter. After all they are our owners.
WE don’t want to lose our Export Dairy Market which is 80-90% of our sales mainly Milk Powder.
and we don’t have spooks in our consular stations?
Of course we do. And the Chinese have spooks in their consular agencies and the Americans have them in theirs. All of these people are registered foreign agents with diplomatic credentials.
This something entirely different. Ask yourself if the Chinese government would happy about the New Zealand government setting up an unauthorised branch of the New Zealand Police in Beijing. The answer is “Hell no!” and the place would be shut down immediately.
Of course you don’t, just the occasional staffer with a generic job title & undisclosed duties. Nothing to see here. NZ is a peaceful nation and has no need for such things. Well, unless we say otherwise.
” Nothing to see here, move along citizen! ”
The second least corrupt country in the world !
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/02/02/political-roundup-chris-hipkins-hires-a-lobbyist-to-run-the-beehive/
The faces change , the bullshit is the same and now we have got ” brad and butter issues ” lets do this mark 2.
Its time Kiwis fronted up to the fact that all the myths that we cling on to like 100% clean and green and one of the least corrupted countries on earth and everyone gets a fair go is just that a myth.
Key was and still is a shyster who smiles and waves while he is robbing you and your family blind by taking from the poor and giving to the struggling rich.
Back to the Chinese.
Many in corrupt free Aotearoa are severely compromised by the trade deals signed and the rush to be put in Beijing’s pocket.
Obviously the Chinese police should now be out assisting our own police in dealing with crime and dear I say it road safety enforcement.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/02/02/political-roundup-chris-hipkins-hires-a-lobbyist-to-run-the-beehive/
FFS, what is going on with this!!??? Letters to MPs are in order here folks, for those who have time. I’ve got a few days off. Mahuta, Nash, Chippy… who else should I write too please? Who knows how to do an OIA request or whatever it’s called? Thanks
There was an investigation which said, “nothing to see here.”
So we say there was smoke, there must be something to see. So we have another investigation and another and another until someone says there is a Chinese police centre operating here?
Love it when our politicians show deep concern at the spread of chinese influence in the pacific when in actual fact we are neck deep in it ourselves.
Antforce62 Key was never really a Kiwi, just another immigrant with an eye for the main chance, aided and abetted by the painted ladies running the Nats. His only regret when he scarpered was that he didn’t manage to change the flag of a country built by others, but not by him. He was a sneaky little character and I expect he still is.
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