Trade with China - Are we putting a price on democracy?

Last Friday I had the privilege of meeting in Wellington with Taiwan’s ambassador to New Zealand, Joanne Ou. Not that the NZ government is brave enough to officially use the term “Ambassador”.  

Given that the self-governing democratic Taiwan is facing mounting political and military intimidation from the communist regime in China, as I’m sure you’ve seen in the news, there was no shortage of things for the two of us to talk about.  

For starters, the Taiwanese people know a lot about foreign interference from China. That experience needs to inform our countering foreign interference strategy here in NZ given that the Chinese Communist Party playbook is also being used here and around the world to destabilise, surveil, coerce, harass and bribe citizens in democratic societies.  

Apparently, the NZ population has now passed 5.3 million. 300,000 Kiwis are of Chinese descent. I know for a fact that the vast majority of the Chinese families who immigrated here did so to give their children a better life. Many of them were my friends and school mates when I was growing up in East Auckland.

Today, though, more recent arrivals will tell you (at least in private) how the few freedoms Chinese citizens may have previously enjoyed during a tentative period of liberalisation which began in the 1990s has since been stamped out under Xi Jinping’s rule. Wishful predictions from western commentators about capitalism’s inevitable democratizing effect on the People’s Republic of China are ringing embarrassingly hollow.

It turns out that communist officials simply have no interest in allowing the general population to tell them what to do.  

The risks posed by China’s authoritarian government ought to be abundantly evident to our politicians and business leaders. Yet we have former prime ministers like Helen Clark and Sir John Key insisting that friendship with China is like a departing train that we can’t afford to miss. It would be easy to assume these “elder” statesman types possess some secret insight which eludes the rest of us. The problem, I think, is more prosaic. They’re stuck in a time warp, still operating with a view of China which reached peak popularity in the West two decades ago. Given Clark conceived and Key birthed the NZ-China Free Trade Agreement during their respective terms in leadership, the two likely feel they have a joint legacy to protect. It also helps explain why they took it upon themselves to unofficially represent NZ in Beijing at an enormous CCP propaganda parade this past September.  

China is now clearly demanding more definitive statements and actions from trade partners over Taiwan’s status. The Chinese ambassador to NZ, Wang Xiaolong, demonstrated just how forceful his government could be on this question when he sent a letter to about a dozen NZ MPs who attended a Taiwan National Day function in October at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Wellington. What was unusual was not the attendance of MPs at such an event – cocktail parties of this kind at the Taiwan office have been a fixture on the calendar in our capital for decades – but the aggressive and demanding tone of the letter. Not only was fraternizing with Taiwanese representatives "unacceptable", according to the ambassador, but it was implied that even private displays of support for Taiwan would threaten NZ's trade relationship with China. To her credit, ACT MP Laura McClure came out strongly against such brazen demands, and she was soon reinforced by Foreign Minister Winston Peters who issued a stern rebuke to the ambassador. Unfortunately, though, it was largely "crickets" from the rest of the House of Representatives. 

In light of this worrying trend, we’re even more determined to get Kiwis paying attention AND doing something about China’s bully tactics in NZ.  

At PILLAR we’ve begun working on a draft bill to ensure greater transparency and accountability over the issue of foreign influence in the NZ Parliament, in our government agencies and with its contractors. To get it done, we’ve engaged with some of the NZ MPs who are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and sought advice from former legislators, academics and researchers both here and abroad.

As we head into an election year, there’s a prime opportunity to hold NZ legislators to account on an issue of tremendous national significance. To get MPs not only sitting up and paying attention, but just as importantly, putting their hands up to do something about the problem of foreign interference and transnational repression, we’re going to also need to engage and mobilise our fellow citizens to use their voices and votes by lobbying political parties and MPs.  

Two major speaking events over the past couple of weekends, first in Christchurch and then Wellington, gave us amazing opportunities to connect with people on this issue, as well as our concerns over the major civil liberties effects which will arise from a U16 Social Media Ban. Arian’s research in this area has allowed us to not only critique the proposed ban, but importantly provides specific and practical resources and alternatives to government control. People we’ve been meeting with and hearing from have given us amazing feedback and insights on how our messaging and campaigns can reach more Kiwis and with greater impact. So, don’t be shy! We’re not afraid of criticism (unlike the CCP)! Let us know what you think! 

More broadly, we’ve been getting great coverage through numerous media outlets and a growing audience on our social media platforms. If you haven’t yet seen Nathan’s brilliant performance discussing the importance of free speech on The Elephant, a new NZHerald online programme, check it out here.

Given everything we now know about China’s domestic human rights abuses, its active interference in liberal democracies around the world (including our own), and its single-minded determination to crush Taiwan’s independent democracy for the sake of proving a point of national honour, we ought to admit that our silence is being bought with trade. Any day now expect China to compel us to parrot its uncompromising lines over Taiwan. Of course, when that happens we'll have to explain to our kids and grandkids why our forebears having struggled through the Great Depression were then willing to sacrifice their own lives in standing up against authoritarianism in WWII, but we can’t even speak up in solidarity with a plucky fellow island democracy 9000 kilometres away in the Western Pacific because of our over-reliance on trade with communist China. 

We don’t have the luxury anymore of viewing the growing geopolitical crisis as if we were detached spectators. Foreign interference is now manifesting itself in our own communities, in corporate boardrooms, and in our Parliament.  

To be crystal clear, this is not about whether someone is ethnically Chinese. It's about Kiwis standing for democratic principles, no matter what we look like, or where we’ve come from.  

At PILLAR we’re building a network of freedom advocates not only in NZ, but with like-minded organisations and movements around the world. Friend, thank you for partnering with us.