NZSIS report reveals Chinese space-tracking bid in New Zealand

The NZSIS report released today says Purple Mountain Observatory had previously attempted to install its ground-based space infrastructure in New Zealand and was likely to try again.

Ground-based space infrastructure tracks and communicates with satellites. While it has civilian and scientific uses, it can also collect intelligence useful for military operations.

Purple Mountain Observatory is an institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences with close links to China’s military space programme.

The NZSIS said New Zealand and Pacific Island countries were particularly useful locations for the equipment because their position allowed satellites passing over Asia-Pacific to be tracked through areas where there was otherwise limited ground-based coverage.

NZSIS director-general Andrew Hampton says a number of factors make New Zealand valuable to foreign powers.

The NZSIS says China was not the only country spying on New Zealand but it was the only one detected doing so “at scale”.

The decision to name the Chinese institution contrasts with the decision by its partner agency, the cyber-spy Government Communications Security Bureau, to withhold the details earlier this year when asked by the Herald.

In March, the GCSB told the Herald there had been “several deceptive efforts” by unnamed foreign entities over the previous five years to establish or use such infrastructure in New Zealand at locations it would identify only as being in the South Island.

It refused to identify those responsible, give the dates of the attempts or release related intelligence reporting, saying disclosure would be likely to harm national security and could give those behind future attempts an advantage.

The NZSIS report also reveals China’s intelligence services were actively recruiting people who already hold New Zealand’s secrets.

It says Chinese military intelligence was using professional networking and online job sites to target current and former government officials with access to classified or sensitive information.

The NZSIS provides examples of those who had been targeted, although it does not specify if this was by China, with one New Zealand government employee responding to an online job offer and unwittingly agreeing to work for a foreign state.

The person failed to tell their employer about the second job and did not properly check the company behind it, the report says. The person went on to share insights and perspectives informed partly by their government role, although not necessarily from classified documents.

In another case highlighted by the NZSIS, a New Zealander advertised their security clearance on social media.

A new report says China’s intelligence services have been actively recruiting New Zealanders with access to secret information.

The move caught the attention of someone acting for a foreign state who was using a company as cover. While the person with the security clearance suspected the job offer might not be legitimate, they continued with the recruitment process because of the money on offer.

In this instance, the NZSIS says it intervened through the person’s employer.

The NZSIS report says recruitment efforts looked like standard job offers with people posing as consultants, think tanks or recruiters offering lucrative work, carrying out interviews online and even paying candidates to write trial reports.

Those who progressed could then be shifted to encrypted messaging and pressed for privileged information. The report says public servants could be encouraged to stay in their jobs to keep access to the information wanted and to create opportunities to recruit colleagues.

Other targeting focused on New Zealand politicians and political candidates, the threat report says. The NZSIS says advisers, candidates and staff could be targeted with gifts, hospitality and donations used to cultivate relationships that might not be exploited for years.

In some cases, candidates could believe they were dealing with representatives of a diaspora community when the person was actually acting for a foreign state.

The NZSIS says China has been the only country spying on New Zealand at scale.

The NZSIS also says a foreign diplomatic mission had pressured local government representatives and community groups around the country to exclude perceived dissidents from events. Others had faced threats involving passports, visas, bank accounts and property unless they moderated political activity opposed by a foreign state.

Russia is also identified in the report after a Russian state-owned organisation concealed its Government links while trying to buy specialised components from the overseas subsidiary of a New Zealand-registered company.

The NZSIS says the Russian state-owned organisation could not legitimately obtain the components because of sanctions and export controls. The technology could have been used to enhance Russia’s military capability.

NZSIS director-general Andrew Hampton said New Zealand’s international connections, technological innovation, security partnerships and position in the Pacific made the country valuable to foreign powers.

“This makes New Zealand not only geopolitically relevant, but attractive to threat actors who are unsentimental in their pursuit of our information and their influence over us,” Hampton said.

The NZSIS report says the threat extended beyond New Zealand into the wider Pacific. It says intelligence officers and people acting for them were in Pacific countries seeking information that could be used to undermine national and regional interests.

In one case, NZSIS identified people conducting espionage and foreign interference in the Pacific on behalf of a foreign intelligence service and shared the intelligence with affected countries.

The report also paints a changing picture of the threat from violent extremism inside New Zealand.

The national terrorism threat level remained at “possible”, with the most plausible attack involving a lone person radicalised online who acts with little or no warning using easily obtained weapons including firearms, knives or a vehicle to attack people in crowded or symbolic places.

NZSIS has also encountered people attempting, or aspiring, to obtain improvised explosive devices and 3D-printed firearms.

A disproportionate number of young people were coming to the agency’s attention after adopting increasingly extreme beliefs associated with violence. The ideological lines were also becoming blurred, with NZSIS saying people were simultaneously consuming ISIS propaganda and white-identity extremist material.

Hampton said some of the threats confronting the country were homegrown.

“Extremist voices from within our shores are contributing to a polarised information environment, and we see some advocating for the use of violence.”

David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.

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