Anne-Marie Brady submitted to yesterday’s Select Committee Inquiry into foreign interference in our elections, making copious reference to her “Magic Weapons” paper of 2017. She didn’t mention another paper which casts a much different light on her independence and purpose
The Magic Weapons paper attacking China was delivered in Washington DC at a conference sponsored by the Taiwanese Institute for Democracy. She made much of the fact that she is a scholar, mentioned its seven pages of footnotes and lectured MPs who had not read it. I have read it.
Her other paper was sponsored by and presumably received some funding from NATO. It was a direct plea to the Labour government to take up her particular ideas about China. The sponsoring NATO website says that this group funds material that supports its strategic objectives, in this case fighting their declared adversaries Russia and China. Countering China was top of their list at their recent 70th anniversary celebrations also in Washington DC, where the real power lies.
So Brady is not just an academic. She is also one of many academics and journalists that the CIA would call an “asset.” She is advocating a strategic position on behalf of a foreign power, the very thing the Select Committee was set up to investigate. I did make this point in my submission.
On Brady’s main point another Professor, Paul Clark from Auckland University, had this to say:
it would be utterly erroneous to leap to an assumption that all Chinese are somehow tools of the Party-state.
What this select committee can do is shed light and offer transparency, rather than retailing conspiracy and paranoia. There has been a flurry of ill-informed commentary and unsubstantiated allegations about Chinese interference in the last 18 months or so.
As I said I have read the “Magic Weapons” Paper. In my opinion it is long on lists, hence the abundant footnotes, heavy on insinuation, and absent proof, Which is why the Select Committee members pressed her for this.
Another very interesting submission came from Naisi Chen. She related how she had been named by Brady in the Magic Weapons paper without any reference to her. She had this to say:
In University I was lucky enough to be chosen for the Young Leaders Program by the Office of Ethnic Communities and then went on to become the President of the New Zealand Chinese Students Association (“NZCSA”). It happens that this particular experience of my life lead Professor Brady to make false accusations that I was somehow promoting the interest of the Chinese government.
The media narrative remained fixated on Brady’s complaints. So RadioNZ here, the Herald here, and Stuff here. But there were some signs of desperation that it’s not working in this article in Newsroom.
While committee members questioned Brady on whether her allegations were based on fact, she sat with her hand on her heart and pleaded for MPs to focus on solutions.
Not very convincing. How dare MPs not follow the media’s line and look for proof.
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