I recently discovered that perhaps the most vocal and unabashed proxy in New Zealand for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lives in a street adjoining my own.
His name is Morgan Xiao and while I don’t believe in doxxing people and have no intention of disclosing his exact address, Mr Xiao from all appearances has no problem advertising that he is a Howick resident at every chance he gets. His very public campaign to intimidate and silence Chinese pro-democracy figures particularly here in East Auckland is why I found out about him in the first place.
In my work for the Free Speech Union, I’ve had the honour of meeting with the brave individuals Mr Xiao has targeted and seen first-hand in our district court his bully tactics in action. Over the past year, we successfully supported local journalist Portia Mao in overturning a court order made under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, which silenced her investigative reporting into Xiao as an aspiring local government representative. Xiao has unsuccessfully run for the Howick Local Board, is still (as far as I’m aware) the secretary for the local Labour Party electorate committee, and pursues a relentless online campaign against anyone in NZ who questions the CCP’s growing influence.
The more I’ve learned about this case, the more I’ve come to realise as I walk my neighbourhood of Howick each evening that the issue of foreign interference from China is far more serious than I first thought.
There are close to 300,000 people of Chinese descent living today in NZ, almost all of whom are here due to the immigration boom of the past 35 years. Most Kiwis never bothered during this period to understand what the new arrivals from China were leaving behind or for that matter what many of them had lived through in the second half of the 20th century. Mao’s Little Red Book, the Long March, and the Cultural Revolution may have been vaguely familiar to those of us who did School Certificate History, but times had apparently changed. China had since entered, it was argued, a new phase of development. By 1991 communism around the globe had either collapsed or undertaken a centrally managed capitalist transformation of sorts. China, due to radical reforms by Deng Xiaoping and his successors seemed to lead the way in this respect. Even the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, while obviously brutal, could be twisted by some to explain why it was better not to rush the pace of liberalisation, but to let China evolve in its own way. Civil liberties would inevitably follow especially if trade could be further opened up. Greater exposure to the West, too, would do the trick. Money blinded many of us to the ultimately inflexible characteristics of authoritarianism.
The notion that modern China was too complex a matter for regular Kiwis to wrap their heads around also served a convenient political and economic purpose. It was a benign economic cashcow.
Yet that excuse just won’t cut it anymore.
In 2020 two serving members of the NZ Parliament, both expatriate Chinese citizens with murky links to the CCP, Raymond Huo of Labour and Dr Jian Yang of National, were quietly shown the Beehive door and dropped from their party lists. To be frank, this particular news didn’t come as a shock to me as ten years earlier I’d frequently sparred with the heavily pro-Beijing views of Yang over the question of China’s intentions when he had been my Politics professor during my postgraduate studies at the University of Auckland. What did take me aback was the lack of public attention such a major disclosure seemed to elicit when our two biggest political parties (under some sort of mutual understanding) quietly made the issue go away.
People’s Liberation Army warships only months ago ran firing drills in the Tasman Sea.
Many exporters continue to argue that even if we really wanted to, pivoting away from China, our number one trading partner, would be economic suicide.
And for close to ten years dissidents based in this country campaigning for democracy and human rights in China have faced increasing levels of intimidation, blackmail and even violence from the CCP’s United Front, an ostensibly civilian network of Beijing sympathisers willing to bribe, bully and blackmail in order to do the party’s bidding.
However, Mr Xiao, while more vocal than others, is not a geopolitical mastermind. From what I’ve come to understand of his modus operandi, he is more likely a useful idiot. NZ, like many other liberal democracies, has made it ridiculously easy for such stooges of ruthless authoritarian regimes to manipulate our laws, our media and politicians for subversive ends. Xiao’s pursuit of journalists like Portia Mao and Justin Wong are cases in point. Yet too many politicians, business leaders and educational institutions appear by and large to have their heads in the sand.
The United Front’s activities have already had a serious chilling effect on free speech in the Chinese community in this country. Many Kiwi-Chinese are concerned, but are now too intimidated to express their true thoughts in public for fear of the CCP’s tools of surveillance through digital means and local informants. Leverage can now be applied in myriad ways by a regime which understands that money talks, and failing that, interrogation and imprisonment of loved ones serves as a ready backup. We aren’t alone though. UK authorities recently remonstrated with Chinese officials for advertising in the UK a cash bounty to anyone who aided in the arrest of 19 pro-democracy activists, many from Hong Kong, who had sought refuge in Britain. The exasperated UK foreign secretary described China’s actions as “transnational repression”, but more serious diplomatic measures have failed to materialise. Closer to home, blatant extra-judicial operations by China’s Ministry of State Security in countries like Fiji should have sent a stark message to liberal democracies like ours when two years ago dozens of MSS officers flew in to Suva and arrested dozens of wanted individuals in a massive forced repatriation. What made the operation so unique was that China ignored Fiji’s legal system entirely. No warrants were sought. No permission was asked for. They just did it.
The FBI just last week opened an office in our capital city. Somewhat predictably the reaction from some of our local commentators was scathing, accusing the government of caving to Trumpian pressure and a supposedly sinister Five Eyes surveillance strategy. What has been forgotten in much of this coverage is that China set up its own extra-judicial police station in Auckland not only without seeking permission, but without NZ authorities even having any knowledge of its existence. A report by Swedish human rights group Safeguard Defenders uncovered at least 110 such “police stations” in 53 countries.
Unsurprisingly, Chinese dissidents continue to be a prime target of this CCP initiative.
My evening walk around Howick is a reminder, however, that this destructive trend need not be thought of as inevitable.
Most Chinese have come to NZ for a better life where their kids can experience freedom, educational opportunities, and an unspoilt environment.
There are pro-democracy campaigners, journalists and community leaders in this neighbourhood who refuse to back down to the CCP. Portia Mao is one of them and when I met recently with Portia and a group of some fifty of her supporters in Howick, I learned of further stories of threats, intimidation and surveillance.
Another is an East Auckland local named Freeman Yu, a pro-democracy leader in the Chinese community who is the sole survivor of a horrific car crash which occurred when he and two other activists were driving to Wellington to present a petition to Parliament calling for resistance to CCP interference. Concerns raised with NZ Police about possible vehicle tampering were never properly investigated and the vehicle was destroyed soon after the Serious Crash Unit concluded its investigation. Freeman, who still carries the scars of his serious injuries, is one of the bravest individuals I’ve met. He points out that NZ can be a trading partner with China, but such a relationship cannot come at the expense of our democratic principles. The two countries do not, he emphasises, have shared values. Party officials describe this system as “democracy with Chinese characteristics”. But dissidents like Freeman will tell you that there is nothing democratic or intrinsically Chinese about the one-party state.
Beyond those brave Chinese voicing opposition, there are a few individuals in this country like Canterbury University academic Anne-Marie Brady and former National MP Simon O’Connor doing their bit to raise the alarm. Both have been subject to surveillance by the CCP, although neither has backed down. We cannot in good conscience let this situation continue. I for one refuse to let it happen in my own backyard.
I think it’s about time more of us started speaking up.
