China has rejected claims that it is a growing espionage threat to New Zealand, calling the suggestions in Wellington’s latest intelligence report “groundless” and “riddled with ideological bias”.
In the annual report released on Thursday, New Zealand said it was facing its toughest national security challenges, with increasing threats of foreign interference and espionage.
It said Beijing was the “most active” player in this interference, an escalation from last year when it labelled China a “complex intelligence concern”.
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service also called out China’s United Front Work Department for engaging in foreign interference to build influence abroad.
It said China was a particularly “assertive and powerful” actor in the region and had shown both a “willingness and capability” to undertake intelligence activity that targeted New Zealand’s national interests.
But the Chinese embassy in Wellington said the report was a “textbook example of misinformation” and suggested that it might itself be “the result of foreign interference”.
