The Chinese embassy said external forces were interfering to undermine ties between trading partners.
Wellington, New Zealand:
China insisted on Thursday it posed no threat to New Zealand's national security after the country's intelligence agency labelled the Beijing-backed groups as a “complex intelligence enterprise”.
New Zealand's Security Service was unusually outspoken in its annual threat report, published this week, saying that the ongoing foreign interference efforts are “complex and misleading.”
The Chinese embassy in New Zealand responded on Thursday by calling such claims “completely baseless” and “a figment of the imagination or pure fabrication.”
“There is no competition between the two countries and China poses no threat to New Zealand,” an embassy spokesperson said in a statement.
Beijing has been accused of infiltrating local groups and replacing authentic community views with those of the ruling party.
In one example, a Chinese-language news channel was accused of repeating government points.
“The report’s blatant attempts to discredit the Chinese diaspora and students are nothing but an attempt to sow discord, create fear and create division,” the Chinese embassy spokesperson said.
“This is highly irresponsible, reckless and extremely unfair to the Chinese community.”
The Chinese embassy suggested that external forces – likely a reference to the United States – were interfering to undermine ties between the trading partners.
New Zealand's centre-right government has aligned the country's foreign policy more with traditional Western allies such as the US.
This was 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 sensitive government computer systems.
China remains New Zealand's largest trading partner, with the country exporting more than NZ$21.39 billion (US$13.2 billion) worth of dairy, meat and timber products, according to the latest official data.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon warned that while China is “a country of unquestionable influence”, its differing values mean “there are issues we cannot and will not agree on”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published via a syndicated feed.)
