China describes New Zealand spy report as completely baseless

The Chinese embassy suggested that external forces had intervened to damage relations between the trading partners.

Wellington, New Zealand:

China insisted on Thursday that it posed no threat to New Zealand's national security after the country's intelligence agency classified the Beijing-backed groups as a “complex intelligence problem”.

New Zealand's Security Intelligence Service was unusually blunt in its annual threat report released this week, calling ongoing foreign interference efforts “complex and misleading.”

The Chinese embassy in New Zealand hit back on Thursday, calling the allegations “completely baseless” and “a figment of the imagination or pure fabrication.”

“There is no significant competition between the two countries and China poses no threat to New Zealand,” an embassy spokesman said in a statement.

Beijing has been accused of infiltrating local groups and replacing authentic community views with those endorsed by the ruling party.

For example, a Chinese-language local news channel was accused of reporting government political views.

“The report’s blatant attempts to discredit the Chinese diaspora and students are nothing more than an attempt to sow discord, create fear and promote division,” the Chinese embassy spokesman responded.

“This is highly irresponsible, reckless and profoundly unfair to the Chinese community.”

The Chinese embassy suggested that external forces – probably implicitly referring to the United States – had intervened to jeopardize relations between the trading partners.

New Zealand's center-right government has brought the country's foreign policy more into line with traditional Western allies such as the United States.

This is accompanied by a greater willingness to speak out against China.

In March, Wellington said a Chinese state-sponsored group was behind a malicious cyberattack in 2021 that infiltrated confidential government computer systems.

China remains New Zealand's largest trading partner, exporting dairy, meat and timber products worth over NZ$21.39 billion (US$13.2 billion), according to the latest official data.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon warned that while China is “a country of undoubted influence,” due to differing values, “there are issues on which we cannot and will not agree.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)