New Zealand faces the “most challenging national security environment of recent times”, the country’s intelligence agency said in an annual risk assessment.

Key drivers of the deteriorating threat environment were less stable relationships between states, deepening polarisation and growing grievances.

Though several states seek to manipulate New Zealand’s government and society, China remains the “most active”, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service said.

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New Zealand’s spy agency specifically accused China’s United Front Work Department of engaging in foreign interference to build influence outside of China.

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China is a “particularly assertive and powerful actor”, seeking to extend and embed its influence across the region, the report said.

“It has demonstrated both a willingness and capability to undertake intelligence activity that targets New Zealand’s national interests.”

Without naming countries, the intelligence service highlighted the routine use of “transnational repression” by foreign states, often by co-opting people to collect information about someone within their own diaspora living in New Zealand.

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