The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has not confirmed whether it will be extended, casting fresh doubt on the development. <\/p>\n
New Zealand and China signed a \u201cconditions of construction agreement\u201d in 2015, allowing each country to facilitate embassy projects.<\/p>\n
New Zealand completed its new $50m Beijing embassy in 2019, but the 10-year agreement lapsed in 2025 without China starting its project.<\/p>\n
MFAT said it had been communicating with the Chinese Embassy, but would not confirm whether it planned to extend the agreement, saying last month it \u201cremain[s] in discussions with China\u201d. <\/p>\n
Despite the project\u2019s resource consent, Wellington\u2019s new water provider Tiaki Wai said relocating or building over the wastewater pipe would require its approval, and it had received no applications. <\/p>\n
Initial plans included the chancery and ambassador\u2019s residence in multiple two to three-storey buildings over nearly a block of central Wellington land.<\/p>\n
If built, it would be the largest foreign embassy in the country, and represent a significant expansion from the Chinese Embassy\u2019s current 3661sq m site on Glenmore St in Thorndon.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s spy agencies have become increasingly open about naming China as undertaking spying on our shores.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service\u2019s 2026 report stated the service had detected China conducting espionage \u201cat scale\u201d in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
In the United Kingdom, China\u2019s plans for a \u201csuper embassy\u201d project have been held up by court action from opponents<\/a>, who fear the two-hectare site is an espionage threat.<\/p>\n University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady has raised similar concerns, telling the Herald the grand embassy plans will \u201cenable China to expand its espionage, transnational repression, and foreign interference activities in New Zealand\u201d.<\/p>\n Brady specialises in Chinese domestic and foreign politics, and has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese Government\u2019s foreign interference activities in New Zealand.<\/p>\n She said the size of the complex\u2019s size will make it \u201cimpossible\u201d for New Zealand security agencies to monitor its activities, and fears it would enable expansion of intelligence surveillance, recruitment and information collection.<\/p>\n \u201cOur public defence assessments have already stated that if a hostile power was to establish a military base or intelligence presence in the Pacific, it would have an immediate threat to NZ security, why then would we permit China to build such a large facility on NZ soil?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has not confirmed whether it will be extended, casting fresh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19064,9526,806,295596,4413,4444,3034,1568,3468,127,26950,295597,295595,8456,10813,305,3594,179528,210643,295594,111,43,139,69,2171,13120,48656,52,102],"class_list":["post-599573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-agreement","tag-another","tag-as","tag-beijings","tag-chinas","tag-chinese","tag-compound","tag-construction","tag-deal","tag-despite","tag-embassy","tag-expired","tag-expires","tag-fresh","tag-grand","tag-have","tag-hit","tag-hurdles","tag-insisting","tag-megaembassy","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plans","tag-remain","tag-setback","tag-wellington","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599573","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=599573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}