"Why fewer people want to learn Mandarin in New Zealand" - is missing many important points. It's not just the "barrage of negative news stories and opinion in mainstream media" that made Mandarin unpopular. There are other reasons too... 1/11 🧵

channelnewsasia.com/world/mandarin… One of which is that the Chinese language and culture presented to foreigners by PRC apparatchiks is totally unappealing to young people... calligraphy and Peking opera and the "Butterfly Lovers" aren't going to cut it with people under 50... 2/11

Former Labour MP Raymond Huo at the head table for last Saturday's study session on Xi Jinping thought at Metropolis Museum in Auckland. 1/4
ausnznet.com/m/article_deta… At first I saw this video, and thought it might have been just be some random who bore an extreme resemblance, as his name placard has been knocked over... but the article says otherwise. 2/4
bilibili.com/video/BV1Nh411…

Oh wow... surprised that Yan Junren 严隽人 turns up in NZ Consulate tweets. He is notable for his appearance in Harrison Christian's 2019 report "Cracking the China code - Kiwi journalists receive lucrative travel offers from Chinese govt" (link follows) 1/7

https://twitter.com/NZinShanghai/status/1395667583022608386

And I quote: "Yan seems to pop up whenever Chinese New Zealanders hold demonstrations on topics sensitive to Beijing." (still a good read three years on) 2/7
stuff.co.nz/auckland/11537…

Please enjoy this collection of photos featuring Wang Feng 王峰 of the PLA Veterans Association dressed up in Uyghurface. He is selling Xinjiang lamb kebabs at Chinese New Year (2020) and stops to pose with Meng Foon. 1/7 The PLA Veterans Association 战友联合总会, now known as "NZ Friends of Peace" 新西兰和平之友联谊会 are a PRC nationalist United Front group involved in anti-democracy counterprotests, threatening dissidents (see last tweet), and the worst Uyghurface cosplay you ever did see. 2/7

Let's play "trace the daft idea back to its original source!" It's like finding out the origin of a famous meme... 1/4

https://twitter.com/davidcapie/status/1356507518931849217

...because this time Su-Lin Tan didn't just pull this one out of her arse like she usually does. This idea actually has a traceable lineage in New Zealand and Su-Lin is drawing on the example from... 2/4
scmp.com/economy/china-…

John Garnaut's 2018 article more relevant than ever for NZ today: "The CCP’s international influence system is a complex, subtle and deeply institutionalised set of inducements and threats designed to shape the way outsiders talk, think and behave." 1/6 themonthly.com.au/issue/2018/aug… “China does not just want you to comply with its wishes. Far more fundamentally, it wants you to think in such a way that you will of your own volition do what it wants without being told. It’s a form of psychological manipulation.” (Bilahari Kausikan) 2/6

Many of the points raised on the PRC's list of 14 Grievances against Australia could apply equally to NZ, and yet NZ has largely escaped PRC economic retaliation. Therefore we can deduce either that some grievances are less significant, or that NZ is being allowed a free pass 1/6 Like Australia, NZ has made statements on South China Sea, human rights abuses, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, has supported Covid-19 inquiry, and initiated natsec legislation around foreign investment, but 2/6

Leaders of New Zealand PRC-affiliated community group leaders praising the new Hong Kong National Security Law. some of them are overjoyed (names and orgs in order of appearance): web.archive.org/web/2020070305… Zhu Xi, president of New Zealand Association for the Peaceful Reunification of China 新西兰中国和平统一促进总会会长朱玺"...the legislation will curb and root out terrorist activities for secession and subversion made in collusion with foreign forces...”