New Zealand’s top spy has warned of the security risks posed by China’s growing influence in the Pacific and said his agency would ramp up scrutiny of the Cook Islands after the nation deepened ties with Beijing.
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Security Intelligence Service Director General Andrew Hampton said the focus of Pacific nations on economic and transnational crime issues had opened the door for China to sign strategic deals with them that linked “economic and security cooperation”.
China wanted to “create competing regional architectures, and expand its influence with Pacific Island countries”, posing foreign interference and espionage risks, he said in a speech to the Zealand Institute of International Affairs in Wellington late on Thursday.
“The People’s Republic of China remains a complex intelligence concern in New Zealand,” he said. “We think it’s important to ensure our Pacific partners are aware of the risks too.”
In recent years, Beijing struck deals with a number of Pacific nations that it said were aimed at boosting economic development in the region.
Last month, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown signed agreements with China spanning education, the economy, infrastructure, fisheries, disaster management and seabed mining.