China claims New Zealand’s spy report is product of foreign interference

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China has dismissed New Zealand's recent security report as influenced by foreign interference and a Cold War mentality, amid escalating geopolitical tensions. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service identified China as the main espionage threat in its annual assessment.

China’s embassy in Wellington has rejected New Zealand’s latest security assessment as the product of “foreign interference” and a “Cold War mentality”, as tension grows in a relationship already strained by geopolitical and security concerns. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service’s annual threat report identified China as the only country conducting espionage “at scale”. In the Thursday report, the agency’s Director General Andrew Hampton described the current threat environment as “the...