4 December 2000. Comments welcome; send to: jya@pipeline.com
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 09:25:00 -0500 (EST)
From: John Woodrow <johnwoodrow@teacher.com>
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: Chinese Intelligence New Zealand Connection
I don't mind my email address being published.
John Woodrow
Chinese Intelligence agents have been operating in the South Pacific for many years. They focus activities on assaults against Taiwan's efforts to gain diplomatic recognition with smaller nations in the South Pacific. In fact, 1999 was quite an active year for the unknown "yellow cold war" chess players in the South Pacific.
Earlier this year Prime Minister Skate of Papua New Guinea temporarily recognised Taiwan before being unceremoniously ousted by his cabinet. That incident had a background of rival intelligence agents from Taiwan and the PRC offering sweetners under and over the table to various officials in the Papua New Guinea Cabinet.
Then in recent months there have been incidents between Solomon Islands ( who recognise Taiwan) and Vanuatu ( who recognise PR China) where, intelligence agents from each side attempted ( and almost succeeded) in switching those countries allegiance to the other side.
Solomons Foreign Minister flew to Beijing in September ( Solomons recognises Taiwan ) - which was followed by a strong rebuttal by the Solomons President which stabilised Taiwan's relationship - for the time being - and Vanuatu which was on the verge of switching to Taiwan from the PRC until Beijing managed to wrangle a visit to Beijing by the Vanuatu President last month.
This game of chess by Taiwan and China, a kind of mini-cold war yahtzee game, has been running under the noses of regional powers like Australia and New Zealand whose Foreign Affairs and Intelligence analysts are oblivious to the wider picture of Asian Regional rivalry that has been heating up in the South Pacific, especially in 1999-2000.
All of these activities involve months of behind the scenes meetings between either Taiwanese or Beijing intelligence agents. They involve promises of Development aid to the respective countries and private deposits in the bank accounts of South Pacific Nations officials, who are famous for their flexibility when it comes to dollar diplomacy.
What most people do not realise is that the Chinese agents are using New Zealand as a layer before entering the US and other target countries in the South Pacific. They have been using Taiwanese and SAR Hong Kong passports to enter New Zealand, start businesses, develop covers and work from there.
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service relies on very selective tip-offs from other agencies and have no idea of the magnitude of the Chinese operations throughout the past three years. There have been no tip-offs regarding the Chinese operations in the South Pacific in recent years.
Operations are covered by Chinese Intelligence use of "snakeheads" who they work hand-in-hand with on forgery of documents, collection of illicit funds from human trafficking (Chinese Intelligence regularly taps phones of families in China waiting for the call from New York to say that the client has arrived ) - in such cases a fee of 40-50,000 USD$ is immediately payable to the snakeheads and the proceeds of such illicit activities are also shared with China's overseas intelligence agency ( not the National Security Ministry as most observers believe) - but in fact another Department - International Liaison Department - which is like MI6 or CIA.
These people are well-traveled, well-trained and well-funded. They maneuver in Chinese trade, snakehead, consular and other circles in each host country and to date, particularly in the case of New Zealand, the host country has not the faintest clue that it is being used as a leaping pad for Pacific and US operations, providing a wonderful cover for so-called "Taiwanese and Hong Kong" passport holders who just happen to be involved in subverting South Pacific Governments AND flying in and out of the US for "other activities".