China accuses New Zealand's top spy of spreading 'false information'

13/3/2025 12:24

China's embassy in New Zealand on Thursday accused Wellington's top spy of "spreading false information" after the intelligence chief warned of security risks posed by Beijing's growing influence in the Pacific.



In a speech in Wellington last week, New Zealand's 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”.

The top spy's comments are "completely baseless, all fabrication," a statement released by the Chinese embassy in Wellington said. It urged Hampton to stop "mirroring" China with "cold war thinking and zero-sum mentality".



In recent years, Beijing has struck deals with a number of Pacific nations, worrying New Zealand, a member of the Five Eye intelligence alliance along with Britain, the U.S., Canada, and Australia.



Hampton had last week said China wanted to "create competing regional architectures, and expand its influence with Pacific Island countries", which posed foreign interference and espionage risks.



The Cook Islands, a self-governing Pacific nation in free-association with New Zealand, is at the heart of recent tensions between China and New Zealand.