Police private trip to China – who to believe?

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 pm, December 16th, 2024 - 15 comments
Categories: China, culture, Diplomacy, FiveEyes, police, uncategorized - Tags:

The Police say it was a private trip to learn about Chinese culture, presumably because it would help their work here. Andrew Little and Anne-Marie Brady without any evidence gave it a sinister cast.

the Police account was that the trip was private, where all those concerned paid for their travel and expenses. They sought advice before going and did. not take any official police equipment with them.

Brady and Little, assisted by RadioNZ, were full of insinuation. According to Anne-Marie Brady, described as a China expert (more on that later), our police do not understand political interference. Her view may be coloured by the fact that they have not agreed with some of her wilder assertions in the past after full investigation.

She gave away her preferred sources, asking why should the police be allowed to go to China when the SIS and GCSB weren’t. She was also a shade unhinged: “Perhaps”, she said, “they may have received little red envelopes of cash!”

Andrew Little was more sweeping. It was all a plot by the Chinese government or Chinese authorities to “curry favour” with our police, who he obviously considers can’t think for themselves. With complete disregard for the facts he set the hares running as to whether the group had been hosted by Chinese government officials. Then he made this extraordinary assertion: “We don’t want our police officers, at whatever level and rank, to hold a loyalty to institutions or causes other than the service of the New Zealand Police.” The photo above is of Constable Yuh being the first to swear allegiance to the King.

He also raised the question of gifts. Anyone who has received Chinese hospitality at any level knows that gifting is a commonplace of the culture. The police officers would have returned home with large amounts of very good Chinese tea, some scarves and some paintings of the Wu Yi mountains. I don’t think they will be turned.

Apparently a formal complaint has been lodged with the Inspector-General of Police. I expect Inspector Hoyle will be proved to be correct in his account of the matter.

But this storm in a teacup and media beat-up does raise some interesting questions.

The first is the relationship between the Police and the so-called security agencies. Linked to this is the Andrew Little’s assertion that “New Zealand’s intelligence agencies spent a large chunk of their time dealing with foreign interference.”

In the Fabian Society we recently hosted Maire Leadbeater speaking about her book The Enemy Within which details countless years of security make-work looking in the wrong direction coupled with an ever-increasing security build-up driven by Five Eyes. She concluded that crimes of foreign interference would be better dealt with by the Police, ironically because of their better accountability structures.

My take was that if Christopher Luxon and David Seymour were looking for a useless bureaucracy to save some money on, the SIS/GCSB would be the ideal place to start. Or use the savings to put more police on the street.

Finally re Anne-Marie Brady, Radio New Zealand’s go-to China “expert.” She is the official adviser to the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on China, a world-wide collection of self-selected parliamentarians founded by Marco Rubio and Iain Duncan-Smith five or six years ago, with a strong anti-CPC mission. It is funded by notorious regime-change agencies, initially the the US National Endowment for Democracy (‘we do in the open what the CIA used to do in secret”), and the George Soros Foundation.

Brady is an anti-China pro-US pro-Taiwan lobbyist. There is more foreign interference in New Zealand from IPAC than from the Chinese government. Their activities are definitely not in our interest.

15 comments on “Police private trip to China – who to believe? ”

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  1. Mikey 1
    17 December 2024 at 8:44 am

    I'd be interested to know what aspects of 'Chinese culture' required a trip to China rather than consulting knowledgeable people here.

    • mpledger 1.1
      18 December 2024 at 8:19 am

      Social Credit Systems and Mass surveillance – according to Wikipedia there is one lens for every two citizens.

      Knowledge from experience is always worth more than knowledge from facts, and maybe outdated facts.

  2. Tiger Mountain 2
    17 December 2024 at 11:53 am

    Yes interesting that Mr Little was wheeled out, he seemed a captive of the security agencies when in office.

    Anne-Marie is a bit of a spinner from my listening, not using a measured academic tone in her public speaking. Brady supports Five Eyes, demanded SIS surveillance of Chinese groups, among her think tank involvement is Small States and the New Security Environment (SSANSE), which has received NATO funding. At one press conference a journo asked whether Brady’s activities could be “more accurately defined not as objective academic work but as propaganda on behalf of the United States, which is preparing for war against China?”

    Brady dismissed the question as an “insult to my academic integrity.” She protested she is “not in a NATO think tank,” but admitted that NATO funded “airfares for a couple of people to attend conferences” and assisted some international academics to take part in SSANSE.

    Brady has close ties with the US political and foreign policy establishment. She has previously stated that a key turning point in her career was during her time in Washington DC, where in 2014 she became a fellow at the Wilson Center, a major US government-funded think tank. Brady also developed her ideas in discussions with Dr Anthony Smith, a senior New Zealand diplomat in Washington. Later, in 2017 and 2018, she organised private meetings for “academics, policy makers, politicians and some top graduate students” to discuss New Zealand’s relations with China.

    I would not trust her one little bit. But I guess that is one matter, the NZ Police still have a questionable culture in many respects, but if this trip was by the book there should be little concern.

    • Morrissey 2.1
      17 December 2024 at 3:15 pm

      She protested she is “not in a NATO think tank,” but admitted that NATO funded “airfares for a couple of people to attend conferences” and assisted some international academics to take part in SSANSE.

      LOL. Methinks the lady doth not protest very effectively.

    • SPC 3.1
      17 December 2024 at 12:59 pm

      Phuang is Thai, Phuong is Vietnamese.

    • SPC 3.2
      17 December 2024 at 1:15 pm

      The social media posts show the trip was organised by Auckland-based China Travel Service, which is owned by China Travel Service Hong Kong.

      Typical vertical integration economics.

  5. thinker 5
    17 December 2024 at 3:32 pm

    Recruitment drive for the 500+ new cops Mark Mitchell needs to prevent egg on his face instead of his cap?

  6. Stephen D 6
    17 December 2024 at 3:40 pm

    Isn’t China doing just what the USA, and England have been doing for years? Invite groups over, show them a good time, make them feel welcome, and send them home with the warm fuzzies.

    • Morrissey 6.1
      17 December 2024 at 4:00 pm

      Precisely, Stephen. That fact makes a mockery of the paranoid ranting of the NATO-aligned Prof. Brady.

      • Stephen D 6.1.1
        17 December 2024 at 4:46 pm

        That’s true, Mo.

        It’s more the hypocrisy of those who have a go at China, while ignoring the snow job that the USA has done on us for years.

    • Anne 6.2
      17 December 2024 at 8:52 pm

      That was my reaction too Stephen D. Unless the powers that be know something we don't know, then why is it different when a group goes to China? Methinks it might be much ado about nothing.

  7. Mikey 7
    18 December 2024 at 11:00 am

    'Whatabout' Israel?

    • Incognito 7.1
      18 December 2024 at 11:29 am

      If you have a point to make, then make it, thanks.

      Are you pointing out the whataboutery of that Morrissey troll @ 4?