China-Antarctic global authority chilled out of Women anniversary Pantheon

Off-message academic professor Anne-Marie Brady found herself out in the cold at the official celebrations centred on International Women's Day.

Professor Brady challenges and questions the policy of successive governments over China.

This China fixation the professor claims represents a posture that puts New Zealand in danger of following in the footsteps of Albania, the Balkan nation which remains impoverished in spite of long being under the economic aegis of China.

Professor Brady points out that China’s policy is to use its resident nationals to influence governments in seeing things from the Beijing point of view.

Internationally, and especially at the Woodrow Wilson Centre research base in Washington, she is acknowledged also for her work in Antarctic geopolitics.

Recent books include The Emerging Politics of Antarctica (Routledge) and China as a Polar Great Power (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

In a series of investigative treatises Professor Brady discarded the conventional tautology common to such published endeavours and in plain language revealed chapter and verse on Beijing’s tactics applied in New Zealand in order to secure favourable political influence.

Having staked its economic future on China this is a policy interpretation that the current New Zealand government wishes to distance itself from.

Professor Brady believes that as a consequence of her China activity revelations that her home and office have been burgled and her car sabotaged.

She has asked the New Zealand government to provide extra security for herself and her family.

She is a full professor and her status as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Centre, part of the Smithsonian Institution, means that in her additional capacity as a linguist she is listened to where it matters.

Professor Brady remains a lightning rod for contrary views about economic reliance on China at a time when the New Zealand government must straddle the United States – China chill on Huawei’s presence as a telecoms supplier.

It must also keep the faith with Beijing over for example Chinese fresh water bottling operations in New Zealand at a time when water activists seek to close them down

Labour governments until now could rely on university academics for unquestioning and unreserved approbation in foreign policy..