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T Magic Weapons: China's political influence activities under Xi Jinping.” In this report Dr. Brady describes in detail what is known about Chinese influence and intelligence operations inside New Zealand. In many ways this is the Kiwi version of the will have the time to read that. he most important thing you will read this week—likely the most important thing you will read this month—is Anne-Marie Brady’s report “.” In this report Dr. Brady describes in detail what is known about Chinese influence and intelligence operations inside New Zealand. In many ways this is the Kiwi version of the Four Corners/Fairfax Media series published earlier this summer about Chinese influence operations in Australia. Brady’s report is more academic; it is thoroughly sourced and footnoted. The report is also long (56 pages in total). What it reveals is important enough that later this week I will do another post consisting of quotations from the report with a few of my comments interspersed between them, in hope that those readers who don’t have the time to read through 56 pages of the full reporthave the time to read that.





But for those with the time, make this report a priority. A reader recently remarked that I seem to be taking a harder line against the Party than I did two or three years back. More than anything else it is knowledge of operations like these that have informed this shift in my thinking. It is vitally important that we understand what the Party’s agents are doing in our own countries. This story is not a side note to the main tale. It is a core part of the story of China's rise. It is at the center of the kind of world the architects of that rise are trying to create. We do not have to guess what that world will look like. They are carving that world out of the heart of the West right now.





." We take a terribly limited view of what the term should mean, associating it with the sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings that create (in the words of one ex-President) a “ passionate attachment of one nation for another ,” emphasis on passion. Washington feared that these sorts of attachments would: One of the neat things about Brady’s report is that she opens up with a general discussion of influence operations and their purpose. One of her strongest points in this discussion is her treatment of the term "soft powerWe take a terribly limited view of what the term should mean, associating it with the sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings that create (in the words of one ex-President) a “,” emphasis onWashington feared that these sorts of attachments would:





“[give] to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.” [1]



Washington was right to fear these things. Yet rapturous bands of brotherly affection are not a prerequisite for them. This is particularly true in the case of the Party. Soft-power influence has not come to the Party by convincing the world to love them. Influence has come by convincing the world that they are the future. The more buzzwords like “Chinese century” move from catch-phrase to zeitgeist the stronger their hand will be. They do not ask you to love the future, just to accept the futility in resisting it. China ascendant, China as the key node of the international order, China the responsible stake holder of world affairs. There is no love in these terms, but there is great power in them. With notions like these the Party weaves visions of a world where we have no choice but to be dependent on them and the stability they bring.



This is the voice of Chinese soft power. Most Westerners who say these things do so honestly (if naively). My intent is not to question their integrity. But we must recognize that this is exactly the path the Party prefers our thoughts to tread. They do not need anything else. The outcome Party’s assault on Taiwanese democracy, for example, depends so little on warm feelings for China. The Party’s victory, if it comes, will depend very much on how reasonable and inevitable this victory is perceived to be. You will hear that compromising the integrity of international law, betraying long-held alliances, or refusing to hold the Party to the same moral standard we hold other tyrannies to referred to as the “adult” or “responsible” thing to do.. Most Westerners who say these things do so honestly (if naively). My intent is not to question their integrity. But we must recognize that this is exactly the path the Party prefers our thoughts to tread. They do not need anything else. The outcome Party’s assault on Taiwanese democracy, for example, depends so little on warm feelings for China. The Party’s victory, if it comes,depend very much on how reasonable and inevitable this victory is perceived to be.





[2] Witch hunts are terrifying. We must not unleash one. But the members of that discussion did not acknowledge how the history of Chinese influence and intelligence activities shape Party operations within the Chinese diaspora today, nor the kind of counterintelligence response that history might merit. For the curious, a wonderful book on this topic is John Garver's China’s Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China Ground zero in this fight for global influence is the Chinese diaspora. This is not a new development. For Chinese communists it really is old hat. This heritage is only referenced in passing in Brady’s report, and is absent entirely from most discussions of the issue. This is one of the frustrations I had with a Sinica podcast discussion recorded a year or so back with Committee of 100 director Holly Chang. Witch hunts are terrifying. We must not unleash one. But the members of that discussion did not acknowledge how the history of Chinese influence and intelligence activities shape Party operations within the Chinese diaspora today, nor the kind of counterintelligence response that history might merit. For the curious, a wonderful book on this topic is . This sprawling, magnificent book narrates how, starting immediately after the revolution and extending right up until Mao’s death, Chinese agents founded parties, messed with elections, instigated insurgencies, and kick-started Maoist movements across the world. Their biggest successes—though in most cases, only temporary—were in Southeast Asia. These attempts to export revolution in wider Asia began with attempts to radicalize the Chinese diaspora. [3] This is how Chinese communists operate. It is still how Chinese communist operate. All that has changed are the goals of the operations.

If your take-away from all of this is that we can’t trust the Chinese among us, you are thinking about it wrong. Chinese Americans, Chinese Australians, Chinese Kiwis, et. al, are not the enemy. They are the victims. The Party has made clear that it believes any man or woman of Chinese blood, no matter their citizenship or locale, is their ward. The Party devotes an incredible amount of resources trying to shape the beliefs and behaviors of this diaspora. This includes extending its system of surveillance, censorship, and coercion into the heart of foreign countries. We ignore this because most of the threats and propaganda the Party spreads about are all spread about in the Chinese language. In the mind of most Westerners, what happens in Chinatown only matters in Chinatown.



This is foolishness. We rightly fret over Russian influence operations in the United States, worried by Russian funded twitter bots and Russian curated Facebook pages. These Russian operations are superficial, surface affairs when placed next to the Party’s ops. The difference is that the Party conducts most of its business in Chinese. Yet a Chinese speaking citizen is still a citizen. Think about what these reports mean: a foreign power surveils, strong-arms, and censors citizens of Western countries inside their own borders . The failure to take the violation of our citizens’ liberties and manipulation of our own citizens’ livelihood seriously is inexcusable. It is a moral failure. And as the New Zealanders are discovering, it is a moral failure with geopolitical consequences.





Four Corners team who has been placing these things in the public eye. But the stories are not new. Most of the Four Corner ‘reveals’ had been in the public domain for one or more years before their report hit the airwaves. Other pieces of evidence were traded about on list-servs or exchanged as bar-room anecdotes long before they appeared on newsstands. What both Four Corners and the “Magic Weapons” reports have done is systematize this information and present it in a fashion the average politico can grasp and understand. This is long overdue. These same steps are taken in other parts of the world. I have heard and read and seen enough to know that these same operations are happening in Taiwan, in the island nations of the South Pacific, in Canada, and in the United States. Of the European situation I know less, but suspect the story is much the same. It is time for reports on these places to be researched and written. We cannot allow this to be ignored any longer. [4] The Kiwis will not be the last to make unsettling discoveries. I am extremely grateful for people like Dr. Brady or theteam who has been placing these things in the public eye. But the stories are not new. Most of the‘reveals’ had been in the public domain for one or more years before their report hit the airwaves. Other pieces of evidence were traded about on list-servs or exchanged as bar-room anecdotes long before they appeared on newsstands. What bothand the “Magic Weapons” reports have done is systematize this information and present it in a fashion the average politico can grasp and understand. This is long overdue. These same steps are taken in other parts of the world. I have heard and read and seen enough to know that these same operations are happening in Taiwan, in the island nations of the South Pacific, in Canada, and in the United States. Of the European situation I know less, but suspect the story is much the same. It is time for reports on these places to be researched and written. We cannot allow this to be ignored any longer.





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