Security Threat Environment report<\/a> released on Thursday, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service said China was the sole nation pursuing espionage in New Zealand “at scale”.<\/p>\nThe report also said China continued to be the “most active” nation among several others involved in foreign interference activity in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Friday, the Chinese Embassy said the NZSIS report included baseless and fabricated accusations.<\/p>\n
“Its false allegations against China either smear normal exchanges and cooperation as so-called espionage or interference, or are entirely groundless and fabricated out of thin air,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“We firmly oppose this and will never accept it.”<\/p>\n
The embassy said the China-New Zealand relationship was one of mutual benefit, with progress having been made in areas such as trade, people-to-people exchanges, tourism and international education in recent years.<\/p>\n
It said the Chinese community in New Zealand had played a positive role in this process.<\/p>\n
Since China’s implementation of a unilateral visa-free policy for New Zealand, a growing number of New Zealanders had visited China and the goodwill towards China as well as support for China-New Zealand relations continued to grow, the embassy said.<\/p>\n
“That this report is released at this particular juncture is no coincidence – it forms part of a new wave of attacks, slander and vilification against China orchestrated by certain international forces, and may well itself be a product of foreign interference,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
It claimed “anti-China forces” were seeking to drive a wedge between the people of both countries, creating a chilling effect on the public, undermining mutual trust and obstructing the growth of the relationship.<\/p>\n
“Our message to those forces and individuals attempting political machinations is this: do not sacrifice the hard-won, mutually beneficial China-New Zealand relationship for selfish gain, and do not act against the interests of New Zealand and its people,” the embassy said.<\/p>\n
“Serving as a pawn for anti-China forces will ultimately backfire.<\/p>\n
“Manufacturing distractions in foreign relations will not solve New Zealand’s own problems – it will only prove counterproductive. We urge these forces and individuals not to quench their thirst with poison, and not to lift a rock only to drop it on their own feet.”<\/p>\n
The embassy also said China valued its relationship with New Zealand, standing ready to work with New Zealand to advance exchanges and cooperation for the benefit of both peoples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chinese Embassy rejects a new report by New Zealand’s top spy agency that includes what it says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-568517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}