Professor Anne-Marie Brady has known for 25 years how much the People’s Republic of China hates professors whose research comes up with conclusions that don’t reflect well on the regime. She’s faced pressure and harassment. But that pressure has now leveled up to potentially lethal levels — in New Zealand, of all places.
According to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald, Brady’s car was tampered with this past November. The Guardian noted that air had been let out of two tires, and valve caps removed, compromising the car’s steering and braking. This was a serious, potentially fatal, accident waiting to happen. The police warned the mechanic not to talk to the media, and did nothing, treating the matter with what the Morning Herald described as “familiar indifference.” But that act against the professor’s car was only the latest in a pattern of thuggish intimidation by the Chinese.
In December 2017, Brady’s office was broken into. While the intruders took nothing in that instance, a message was being sent. The incident was reported, but nothing was done. Brady later received a letter informing her that a massive intimidation campaign was underway.
According to the Morning Herald, she was negotiating to turn the letter over to New Zealand’s Special Intelligence Service when the situation escalated in a frightening way. In February 2018, a day before she was slated to testify before the Australian Parliament about her findings, there was another break-in. This time, the target was Brady’s house. Brady’s office was again targeted. The burglar ignored cash, jewelry, and most of the electronics in the house and office.
What was taken: Laptops, phones, and a memory stick from a visit to China. Brady had reported that incident to the police, but again, no action was taken per the Sydney Morning Herald. This was despite the fact she had reported these incidents to not just the police but to New Zealand’s intelligence community. According to the New Zealand Herald, police have been unable to solve the crimes.
What did Brady do to warrant such hostility from the regime in Beijing? She put out a paper available from the Wilson Center about the People’s Republic of China’s influence operations in New Zealand. Chinese officials had been comparing their relationship with New Zealand favorably to the one they had with Enver Hoxha’s Cold War-era dictatorship in Albania. She also published a book, China as a Polar Great Power, which went into detail about China’s ambitions in the Arctic and Antarctic.
More sinister, according to the Morning Herald, is that she uncovered China illegally operating three installations in parts of Antarctica under Australian sovereignty, and she also discovered that a member of the New Zealand Parliament had a side gig working with Chinese intelligence for a decade and a half.
That’s quite a bit of dirty laundry — just the influence actions alone make Chinese President Xi Jinping look like some sleazy businessman using payoffs to get favorable action from the government. The response to the paper and the book makes Xi look like the geopolitical equivalent of a two-bit mafia don who sends out his goon squad to try to keep a witness from testifying — one way or another.
Fortunately, other China scholars have been standing up. Late last year, more than 200 China scholars signed a letter demanding that the government of New Zealand protect Brady.
But the United States could do more — they could offer her asylum from the Chinese threats. New Zealand’s gun laws prohibit the ownership of firearms for self-defense, but the Second Amendment protects that right in America.
In any case, the Chinese government’s actions against Brady warrant a response. It is not only well past time for a serious look into China’s thuggish campaign of intimidation against academics, but also to run a thorough counterintelligence investigation to determine the extent of China’s actions in the U.S. and to impose appropriate sanctions.
In addition, the U.S. should build up its military to deter further aggression by the People’s Republic of China. American naval power, in particular, needs a boost. What better way to tell Xi to cut this sort of crap out than to get a bigger stick?
Harold Hutchison has 15 years of experience covering military issues for multiple outlets.
