Stuff Circuit’s chilling and timely voice from the grave

In the end, the timing was impeccable. The day Chinese premier Li Qiang arrived on a state visit, Stuff dropped a bombshell announcing its documentary on the superpower’s New Zealand interference operations that have been going on for decades.

The documentary The Long Game (and daily revelations from it printed in Stuff newspapers) paint a picture of agents of influence, spying on the local Chinese community, and allegations of sabotage and intimidation. After the programme’s release, the Interparliamentary Alliance on China (co-chaired by National and Labour) called for a select committee inquiry into foreign interference.

This was powerful journalism from the Stuff Circuit team. Yet The Long Game was a documentary from the dead, and one that almost failed to claw its way out of the grave.

The Stuff Circuit team had already been disbanded when it screened. The team had included investigative journalist Paula Penfold, senior producer Louisa Cleave, editor Toby Longbottom and cameraman Phil Johnson but only Penfold remained employed by Stuff. The rest of the team had been gone for months.

The Long Game was its last project, but legal and editorial caution almost prevented the documentary (and the series of print articles that had been prepared at the same time by Penfold and Cleave) from seeing the light of day.

The rise and demise of Stuff Circuit was well interrogated by Duncan Greive on The Spinoff in February, and he spent some of that review wondering whether The Long Game would ever be published.

The programme had several threads going as far back as 1996 when an officer of China’s Public Security Bureau was allegedly sent to New Zealand to spy on members of the expatriate community. However, the thread that appears to have been at the centre of Stuff’s caution over publication related to the controversy and subsequent court proceedings over donations to the National Party by wealthy Chinese.

The Circuit investigation integrated these activities – together with functions and events to which influential New Zealanders were invited – into a united front to promote the interests of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in this country. While prosecution and appeal proceedings were underway, Stuff’s lawyers were urging caution and, as the documentary shows, Stuff executives regarded it as unpublishable. Those proceedings were subsequently concluded, and the impediment appeared to have been resolved.

It was no secret that Stuff Circuit had been investigating China’s influence in New Zealand. It had been working on the story for two years. If the team had done its job –­ and the tableful of awards it had won for its other projects attest to its professionalism – why not now publish? The Long Game may have seemed buried, but it would be only a matter of time before someone went looking for the grave and asking awkward questions.

To its credit, Stuff did unveil the 90-minute documentary on its website on Friday. The previous day it had marked the arrival of the Chinese premier by flagging what would come and admitted that the Circuit investigation would ramp up tensions between the two countries.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon no doubt uttered a few decidedly undiplomatic phrases when he saw the front page of The Post before toddling off to the airport to meet Premier Li. The preview written by Paula Penfold and Louisa Cleave spoke of “revelations that Chinese Communist Party influence and interference operations in New Zealand have been going on for decades, unabated, striking at the heart of our democracy”.

And The Long Game did indeed reveal what has been going on.

I am not a particular fan of the style adopted in the documentary. It is heavy with journalistic disclosure and takes the viewer on a journey with Penfold and Cleave as they doorstep interview subjects and carry out atmospheric interviews. It is as much “this is what we did” as “this is what we found”. I favour a documentary style that favours the latter. For that reason, I have found the companion articles particularly helpful.

However, irrespective of the documentary techniques, the Circuit investigation reveals a deeply disturbing operation to influence attitudes toward China, interfere with democratic processes, and limit opposition to the CCP by Chinese in New Zealand.

The programme’s title accurately describes the strategy that is being played out. It is a long game and a country that measures its culture in thousands of years is adept at it. Penfold and Cleave take us back to the 1996 arrival of an intelligence operative (Mr H) and his subsequent application for refugee status a decade later. At that time his lawyer stated: “There is not the slightest doubt he has been engaged in the secret service on behalf of the People’s Republic of China”. It is unlikely that Mr H was the sole agent sent to New Zealand in the 1990s or since.

Influence is also a long game, and the programme details how influence has been sought by people it states are working in the interests of the CCP. The approaches are as varied as the targets, and it seems money is no object. There is certainly a good helping of glitz and glamour employed by the united front. The Circuit team helpfully explains that lower case (united front) denotes the nature of the work but, if you see it in upper case, it stands for the United Front Work Department: “The CCP agency responsible for co-ordinating influence operations, running proxies who cosy up to targets potentially useful for promoting CCP interests, while also working to suppress the voices of critics.”

It is the latter activity that produces the most sinister claims of the documentary. One interview subject, Liu “Michael” Quanzhou, claimed to have thwarted an attempt by armed Chinese agents to kidnap and return him to China. The documentary showed pictures of his facial injuries and included confirmation by a witness. There were also claims of an earlier successful abduction of a Chinese national.

The Long Game also raised questions over the cause of a fatal two-car crash near Tokoroa in 2020 in which two pro-democracy activists died and a third was seriously injured. They had been on their way to Parliament to deliver a petition setting out their concerns about CCP influence in New Zealand. There were allegations of sabotage, but a crash investigator claimed in the programme that Police had misinterpreted the allegation and examined the wrong vehicle. The programme left an open question: Did Chinese agents try to prevent the petition being presented?

The Long Game may not have provided enough evidence for a round-up of Chinese agents in New Zealand, but it has served a vital purpose in waking Kiwis up. We are not simply a small nation in the South Pacific that represents a threat to no-one, and which is therefore of no interest to superpowers. Those powers seek influence wherever they can find it and the dictatorships among them seek to suppress dissent irrespective of where it is to be found. The Long Game showed us we are a target.

An editorial that ran in The Post and The Press on Saturday said the Stuff Circuit team had tackled “one of the white whales of New Zealand journalism”. Like Moby Dick, the extent of CCP influence and interference in this country is hard to pin down. It suggested the documentary would leave viewers with a nagging sense that there is more that needs to be uncovered.

That is certainly the case, but it will not be done by the Stuff Circuit team. Paula Penfold did, however, have the satisfaction of asking Premier Li for his response to the allegation of interference. She did so during a “photograph and video opportunity” in Auckland at which there were supposed to be no questions from reporters. Penfold shouted the question as he was leaving the building. He did not respond, and that spoke volumes.

Stuff may live to regret removing Cleave, Longbottom and Johnson from its payroll. Each is a skilled operator with years of experience in television. Stuff has signed up to provide TV3’s nightly news bulletin and their expertise would have been invaluable. It would be all the more so after Warner Bros Discovery turns its back on broadcasting and puts all its New Zealand interests into a streaming environment. Then the innovation and ingenuity that they and their colleague Paula Penfold might bring to reimagining the news could have been a game-changer.

You can view The Long Game here.