In its annual “Security Threat Environment 2026 Assessment,” released yesterday (August 13), New Zealand has warned that China is the only country conducting espionage “at scale”, establishing itself as the nation’s most active and dominant foreign intelligence threat.
The report, prepared by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS), has detailed aggressive Chinese operations targeting local industries, technology sectors, space facilities, and political figures.
In his foreword to the report, Andrew Hampton, NZSIS’s Director General, says it aims to inform the people of the looming threats facing a country like New Zealand, given its size and location in the South Pacific.
The report specifically names Chinese entities engaging in spying activities and said that its findings fully aligned with “Five Eyes” (an intelligence-sharing alliance consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) warnings, Hampton underlined.
The NZSIS makes seven key assessments about New Zealand’s threat environment in 2026:
- Geopolitical upheaval is bringing downstream threats to New Zealand’s safety and security.
- New Zealand’s public and private sectors are being targeted by foreign states and their proxies to gain access to critical assets, including intellectual property, innovative technology and other non-public information.
- Espionage, or spying, is the covert access to protected information. Foreign states frequently use proxies to do this, and recruit individuals who can provide insight into New Zealand’s information and systems. Espionage techniques can also be used to support foreign interference activity. Several states conduct espionage against New Zealand, but the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the only country to have been detected doing it at scale.
- Diaspora community groups in New Zealand are being unfairly targeted by foreign states and their proxies seeking to limit the democratic rights and freedoms they enjoy in New Zealand.
- More insiders are harming their organizations and New Zealand’s national security through actions that are deliberate, influenced by outsiders, or unwitting.
- Another terrorist attack in New Zealand is assessed as Possible. The most likely attack scenario would involve a lone actor targeting people in a crowded place with easily accessible weapons. Their mobilization toward violence will likely occur with little to no intelligence warning.
- Violent extremism in New Zealand is being influenced by a broad range of ideologies, a mix of domestic and international events, and the mainstreaming of extremist online rhetoric.
Be that as it may, coming back to the China angle, it may be noted that over the past three years, the NZSIS has steadily raised the alarm about Chinese intelligence activity targeting New Zealand, including efforts to acquire information for political or corporate use, gain influence, and repress Chinese communities in New Zealand. It has been releasing its threat assessments publicly since 2023.
In its 21 August 2025 Security Threat Environment report, the NZSIS also described China as the “most active” state engaging in foreign interference in New Zealand. It said Beijing’s activities were “regularly deceptive, coercive and corruptive”.
Incidentally, separate from NZSIS, an internal December 2025 assessment by New Zealand’s Defence Force and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had also warned of the Chinese threats. It had said that Chinese naval patrols and missile tests would remain a persistent feature of the Pacific strategic environment.
The 15-page report cited the February 2025 deployment of a PLA-N task group to the Tasman Sea and China’s September 2024 ICBM test .“We anticipate that Chinese actions… will be a persistent feature of our strategic environment”, it said, while noting that Chinese amphibious vessels for disaster relief and space-support ships in the region were designed to track rockets and missiles.
The EurAsian Times had then explained how China’s “unprecedented” live-fire naval drills in the Tasman Sea, between Australia and New Zealand, on February 22 and 23, raised significant security concerns in the Indo-Pacific region as a whole.
In fact, EurAsian Times had also pointed out that conducting a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), a weapon designed for nuclear war, in the South Pacific on July 6 raised concerns in Australia and New Zealand that Beijing might have a permanent military presence in Oceania.
Coming back to NZSIS, it is equally noteworthy that on June 4 this year, it joined all Four Eyes partners to publicly accuse Chinese military intelligence of using LinkedIn to recruit New Zealanders. Hampton had then said it plainly: “This is espionage”.
In fact, it was for the first time that New Zealand openly termed Chinese interference “deceptive, coercive and corruptive”, and called recruitment “espionage”.
Hampton said the threat environment was deteriorating. New Zealand’s answer, according to him, is to talk about it out loud. Whether that deters Beijing, or accelerates the split, will define the next phase of the Five Eyes, he had then said.
In fact, all Five Eyes issued a joint bulletin warning that Chinese military intelligence was using social media and hiring agents to create unrest in the regional countries.
Against this background, yesterday’s report goes a step further in naming specific Chinese entities, specifically adding a physical infrastructure case.
In what is one of the report’s most significant disclosures, Purple Mountain Observatory, which the NZSIS says is based in China and has close links to the Chinese Government, is accused of establishing ground-based space infrastructure in New Zealand.
“They worked with a local company that was likely unaware of the equipment’s capability to collect intelligence of military value and would have no idea who was receiving the data,” the report says.
The NZSIS report says Purple Mountain Observatory’s links to the Chinese Government meant it could be compelled to pass on any data collected.
According to Hampton, the activity had reached the point where he and other agencies needed to take “disruptive action” in order to ensure that infrastructure that had been put in place “was not being used against our national interests”.
The report says it was not the first attempt by Purple Mountain Observatory to install its infrastructure in New Zealand and was unlikely to be the last.
The obvious implication of this is that satellite tracking, space event support ships, and ground stations are now framed as intelligence risks for a Pacific nation like New Zealand. Space infrastructure will now be under increased scrutiny as it is connected with missile warning, maritime surveillance, and communications.
Secondly, the latest report emphasizes that China’s military intelligence services have increased their targeting of New Zealanders “with inside access”, using professional networking sites and online job platforms for espionage purposes.
It says Chinese intelligence officers and their affiliates pose as consultants or employees of think tanks or recruitment firms to target current and former New Zealand Government officials who have had access to classified or sensitive information.
“The job offers are lucrative, but the intelligence officers often encourage their candidates to keep their government jobs both to keep the information tap running and to open up opportunities to recruit their colleagues.”
Thirdly, the timing of the report is significant as it has come at a time when New Zealand is preparing for the general elections, slated to be held on November 7.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who is said to have displeased China for his growing proximity to the United States and is set to import a lot of American arms, is likely to seek to renew his mandate.
In fact, in his foreword to the NZSIS report, Humpton says that “Unfortunately, we see attempts at foreign interference targeting political figures, both at the national and local level, occurring constantly”.
The report predicts that “efforts to build influence” are expected to continue through the election period ….. would likely exploit the accessibility of political candidates while they are out campaigning and that in some cases candidates may believe they are engaging with community representatives when they could in fact be dealing with a foreign state actor.
“Donations, gifts and hospitality could also be used to build a relationship with a candidate that could be leveraged sometimes years later”.
Predictably, in a longish press release, the Chinese embassy in Wellington has “rejected” and “condemned” the NZSIS report, saying its claims are “rife with Cold War thinking”.
Terming the report “part of a new round of attacks, smears and vilification of China orchestrated by certain international forces), the Chinese embassy has counter-attacked, saying, “ In itself, the report may well be the result of foreign interference ….Their actions serve geopolitical purposes and the narrow, short-sighted political interests of certain forces. Their intentions are clear to anyone with insight, and their objectives will not succeed.”
In fact, the embassy warned those forces and individuals attempting to engage in political manipulation: “Do not undermine the hard-won, mutually beneficial and win-win China-New Zealand relationship for your own selfish interests, thereby harming the interests of New Zealand and its people.
“The development of China-New Zealand relations does not depend on China alone. We hope the New Zealand side will work in the same direction as China, rather than the opposite. Otherwise, the New Zealand side will bear responsibility for any consequences arising from such a course of action”.
Incidentally, the Chinese embassy had reacted equally sharply to last year’s NZSIS report too. And it had put travel bans on four backbench MPs who had travelled to Taiwan.
Incidentally, China is New Zealand’s largest trading partner, accounting for roughly a quarter of its total exports and exceeding NZ$40 billion in annual two-way trade. The two have a bilateral free trade agreement, initially signed in 2008 and upgraded in 2022.
This seems to be the reason why the NZSIS report has cautioned that its findings on China “should not prevent New Zealand organisations from trading or collaborating with Chinese entities”. It urged an “eyes wide open” approach to overseas business and research ties.
As Hampton put it, New Zealand’s answer is transparency. NZSIS is using exposure to raise the cost of operations. Whether that deters Beijing or forces it to change tactics will shape the future.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- This is an Opinion Article
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
