NZIIA Seminar: 'Canaries and Coalmines: Foreign Interference, Political Resilience, and the Changing Global Order.'

A global order is emerging. New Zealand must work hard to adjust to the shift in global politics. This was at the heart of Professor Anne-Marie Brady’s lecture entitled Canaries and Coalmines: Foreign Interference, Political Resilience, and the Changing Global Order. Her lecture serves as a template/checklist for creating strategies for the New Zealand-China relationship based on her three-year research into the former totalitarian/communist and now mature fascist/capitalist nation. The title of her lecture alludes to the fear that a proudly independent such as New Zealand will find itself in deep trouble if it cannot find ways to develop a constructive, respectful and healthy relationship with China.

China aspires to be a global super power, and is already seeking change in the global order. Getting the China relationship right is going to be one of New Zealand’s greatest foreign policy challenges in the next few decades. This talk surveys China’s global foreign policy agenda and assesses how it affects New Zealand’s interests. She stressed that it was imperative for New Zealand to fiercely protect its political system. Just like Ms. Jean Lee’s lecture, one cannot understand China and its system without examining its history, philosophies and leaders (past and present). China, in particular, has evolved exponentially during the course of its history, especially under Xi Jinping’s administration. The subject of China and its foreign policies begins with naval officer, Sir Alfred Mahan, who served as one of the major influences on China’s new foreign policy strategy. Mahan was a U.S. naval historian and a specialist on the rivalry between France and Great Britain. His books The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 and The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 suggested what a rising power must do to achieve domination. Mahan suggested that a nation must develop its own army and navy and to develop its own global trade policies. Along with Soviet/Leninist ideologies, China latched onto Mahan’s philosophies, but was unable to put them into effect due to the behest of the Soviets until the 1980s. With Mahan’s philosophies applied into China’s own policies, this helped China double in growth by 2012 when Xi Jinping came into power.

Like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping remains an enigma to the west. But what is known is that Xi Jinping is leading much more ambitious foreign policies in recent years, like Japan in the 1930s and 40s. Since the late 70s, under the doctrine of Deng Xiaoping, China abided its strength and time in regards to its policies. Like Russia, China has believed, to this day, that the west is weak and will continue to weaken, and China’s chance for glory will come one day. In 2017, Xi Jinping expressed to the Chinese population that "they were in a new era. China is in a new era and the world is in a new era." With this, China’s chance has come and has taken extreme lengths to become more assertive. This is also thanks to Xi Jinping’s strong belief in the ancient concept of "rich country, strong military", which believes that China will return to its rightful place as a dominant super power. Xi Jinping is a product of his upbringing and the philosophies created by the United Front, founded by Mao Zedong, which led to the rise of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Mao strongly referred to the United Front and their work as "one of the three magic weapons of the Communist Party of China." Living through the Cultural Revolution in China, Xi is strongly interested in following the groundwork laid out by Mao, and has raised the status of the United Front to heights that has never been witnessed before. The party is now leading China in its foreign policies. This has resulted in the party going global and its main goal is to maintain its Chinese population both inside and outside of China. This is largely in regards to its fear of western influence and the rise of democracy, as well as the creation of opposition against the party. Under Xi Jinping’s government, China has severely taken a step backwards in regards to domestic policies. Which saw criticism towards the party met with enormous censorship, and its propaganda being treated as "the life blood" of the party. Enormous efforts are being made by the party to shape the country’s domestic and international views. This extends to Chinese cinema in relation to Hollywood, in which sensitive films such as Kundun (1997) and Seven Years in Tibet (1997) can no longer be released in Chinese theatres.

These are some aspects, expressed by Professor Brady, that provide an understanding of contemporary China, and why China should be of interest to New Zealand. It is with this that Professor Brady stressed that New Zealand needs to have the conversation (both privately and publically) and a change in mindset as how to we approach China in regards to topics such as cyber attacks. Hopefully, just as Professor Brady hopes, New Zealand’s fate will not mirror that of Albania with their relationship to China. Professor Brady also hopes that New Zealand will not take its values, e.g. democracy, for granted.

Professor Brady specialises in Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Pacific politics and New Zealand foreign policy. She is a fluent Mandarin speaker with dual majors in Chinese, Political Science and International Relations. She received her BA and Ma from the University of Auckland and her PhD from Australian National University. Among many things, she is a Professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, as well as being a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington DC, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham, and a member of the Council on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. In addition, she is the editor-in-chief of The Polar Journal. She has published ten books and more than fifty scholarly articles on a range of issues including China’s strategic interests in the Arctic and Antarctic, China’s modernised propaganda system, and New Zealand-China relations. Her op eds have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and The Australian. China as a Polar Great Power, and Small States and the Changing Global Order: New Zealand Faces the Future are her most recent books. Her other books include China’s Thought Management, and Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China.

Also, see the previous seminar here.