Two overseas agents from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s state media have been revealed as two of the top donors of New Zealand’s major opposition party, and the country is lacking proper laws to make it illegal.
The New Zealand Electoral Commission’s donation records—released in late April—reveal that the National Party’s 2022 donors include three high-level CCP influencers, including two media operatives with close ties to the CCP.
Leading the CCP-tied donors is Shanghai-based Lu Xinyan (Vicky Lu), who donated just under NZ$20,000 (AU$18,800 and US$12,732), with an amount of $18,750.
Lu Xinyan is the acting head of the Australia and New Zealand offices of People’s Daily Overseas Edition. She is also the president and chairman of the board of Atlantic Media Group in New Zealand.
The Atlantic Media Group owns a publishing house, digital media, and a financial magazine. Lu also told a symposium celebrating the 95th anniversary of the CCP’s founding held in Auckland in 2016 that the company has also acquired and taken stakes in a number of local Chinese newspapers, covering the Pacific, Asia, and the United States.
“As a member of the New Zealand Channel [of People’s Daily], [we] should be obliged to convey the voice of China and express its position,” Lu told her New Zealand audience. “Tell stories overseas in a more accessible way of communication so that the world knows about China and understands China.”
Vicky Lu ranked the 31st largest donor to the National Party of New Zealand, while Lili Wang ranked 35th. (Screenshot by The Epoch Times)
Additionally, the National Party received just over $17,000 from another Chinese state media affiliate Lili Wang. Wang is the head of the Chinese Language Herald newspaper in New Zealand. Registered in Beijing, The Herald has been revealed in 2019 to be run by a company owned by the CCP’s state-run China News Service.
In 2018, Wang travelled to China to attend the “Media Cooperation Forum” on Belt and Road in Hainan Province, where the Chinese state and affiliated organisations called on overseas Chinese media to help promote the CCP’s agenda, New Zealand newsroom reported.
During the pro-democracy anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement in Hong Kong in 2019, the Chinese Herald was in the spotlight for publishing and then retracting a misleading article, which made a number of debunked claims about the protests in Hong Kong.
Also on the list of donors is Steven Wong, the former president of the New Zealand branch of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification, who donated $16,161. Wong is currently the President of the New Zealand Chinese Association.
National Party Toed CCP Line on Human Rights Violations in Xinjiang
The revelation of the data comes after the New Zealand National Party’s Foreign Affairs Spokesman Gerry Brownlee echoed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda when discussing a United Nations (U.N.) report that found credible evidence of serious human rights violations against the Uyghurs by the CCP in Xinjiang, in September.
“It’s good that it acknowledges that there has been a terrorism problem, in particular, the part of China that the focus of this report is on,” he told Radio New Zealand on Thursday.
Brownlee believes New Zealand should continue to make statements condemning human rights issues in the province where opportunities arise while also recognising that it was a “third-world country dealing with a problem internally.”
He said that New Zealand also should not look into stopping imports from Xinjiang, claiming it was a “great tool” for discussions around a more “compatible view of human business.”
He added that he hoped China would “engage appropriately” and look at some of the recommendations made by the report.
The U.N. report accused the CCP of using an “anti-terrorism law system” that used vague national security and counter-terrorism laws to discriminate against Uyghurs and other minorities, leading to “serious human rights violations.”
“The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” the report states.
Expert: New Zealand Lacking Foreign Agents Act
The CCP has a long history of infiltrating political parties in New Zealand through personal donations and then interfering with the country’s government, said Chen Weijian, the New Zealand-based editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring magazine.
“The CCP’s white gloves, these proxy donations haven’t stopped yet, Chen told Radio Free Asia. “The overseas agent of the People’s Daily is not an ordinary person. This is a very obvious improper donation, but no legal problems can be found. There’s nothing you can do if she follows the Donations Act! New Zealand does not have a Foreign Agents Act until now.”
“The most important issue is that the entire New Zealand government is very pro-CCP and will not bother with such matters as long as they are not obviously illegal.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern shake hands before the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on April 1, 2019. (Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Pool/Getty Images)
Feng Chongyi, an associate professor in China Studies at the University of Technology Sydney, echoed Chen’s concern.
Feng argued that in contrast to Australia, New Zealand had not yet enacted legislation to close the loophole, emboldening CCP agents to engage in political donation activities without restraint.
“There is no such legislation in New Zealand,” he said. “The loopholes in the law here are so large that these agents of the CCP, these ambassadors, are so blatant that they are still as active in political donations as ever.”
This comes after a New Zealand public servant was accused of spying for the CCP.
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