Anne-Marie Brady

Anne-Marie Sharon Brady (born 1966) is a New Zealand academic and Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury. She specialises in Chinese domestic and foreign politics, Antarctic and Arctic politics, Pacific politics, and New Zealand Foreign Policy.

Brady is the first female political scientist to be elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of New Zealand, Te Apārangi.

Her research on Antarctic politics, China's polar interests, and the Chinese Communist Party's domestic and foreign policy, in particular, foreign interference activities, has been a catalyst contributing to policy adjustments by governments of the US, to New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Canada, and the EU.

Education Brady earned her Bachelor's of Arts (B.A.) in Chinese and Political Studies from the University of Auckland in 1989. She then earned her Masters of Asian Studies; Chinese and Political Studies with First Class Honours at the University of Auckland in 1994.

Fellowships

Global Fellow with the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States’ Polar Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Non-resident Senior Fellow at the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham in the UK, Member of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). Member of the World Economic Forum's Global Action Council on the Arctic, 2014 - 2016. The citation read:

Allegations of Chinese Communist Party influence in New Zealand

In September 2017, Brady presented a conference paper Magic Weapons: China's political influence activities under Xi Jinping detailing the Chinese Communist Party's attempts to influence international opinion using New Zealand as a case study. Brady's paper argued that the Chinese government was working with Chinese diaspora community organisations and ethnic Chinese media as part of a united front strategy to advance Chinese political and economic interests in New Zealand. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence in New Zealand included working with diaspora organisations and local media to cultivate relationships with New Zealand business and politicians from the country's two major parties, National and Labour.

In late 2017, she claimed to have become the target of a campaign of intimidation. A number of related properties were burgled, including her university office and home. , progress was being made in the investigation and Interpol were involved. In December 2018, 303 academics, think-tankers, journalists, human-rights activists, politicians signed an open letter that was published on the Czech academic website Sinopsis condemning the harassment campaign against Brady and urging the New Zealand Government to protect her so she could continue her research.

In mid-February 2019, it was reported that the police investigation into the burglary and other incidents had concluded as unresolved. While an ABC's Four Corners documentary claimed that "Australian intelligence agencies have identified China's spy service as the prime suspect behind the intimidation of University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded in April 2019 that she had seen "nothing - no evidence - to support the claims that were made in that story".

On 8 March 2019, it was reported that Brady had been blocked from submitting evidence to the New Zealand Parliament's justice select committee examining potential foreign influence in the New Zealand elections. The four Labour members of the justice select committee, including former chair Raymond Huo, had decided to exclude Brady on "procedural grounds" that her testimony had passed the deadline; Huo had been named as a pro-CCP influencer in Brady's "Magic Weapons" paper. Their action was criticised by the opposition National Party including electoral reform spokesperson Nick Smith. In response to media coverage and criticism from the National Party, the Labour Party announced that Huo had reversed his earlier decision and extended an invitation for Brady to speak to select committee members.

In March 2021, Brady claimed that a New Zealander who had been exposed by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service for gathering information on behalf of an unidentified foreign intelligence agency about New Zealand–based dissidents had been working for China. Brady claimed that the CCP targeted the Chinese diaspora since it feared that they could "nurture and support political change in China" and in order to influence foreign societies.

In June 2021, Brady and two other academics said that they suspect that the Chinese government were spying on their lectures, by sending students to attend, photograph and film lectures. The Chinese Embassy dismissed these claims, and the Minister for Education Chris Hipkins advised universities and lecturers to inform the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service if they have any concerns about espionage in their lecture halls.

Brady's Twitter account was temporarily suspended as a result of her tweets that made fun of Xi Jinping and the lack of international positive reaction to the 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. She had suggested in one tweet that an alternative headline for a news article about the celebrations: “Xi: its my Party and I’ll cry if I want to”. A Times journalist said that the block was probably an algorithmic response to a number of complaints from CCP agents that would have been received by Twitter. Her account was subsequently restored.

Controversy over standards of scholarship In 2020, Brady's research paper A Pen in One Hand, Gripping a Gun in the Other was submitted as evidence of CCP influence campaigns to the New Zealand Parliament's justice select committee. Despite being protected by Parliamentary privilege, the paper drew a formal complaint from the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington stating that it is "inflammatory, inaccurate and unprofessional". They alleged "...manifest errors of fact and misleading inferences..." and "... unsubstantiated assertions and outright falsehoods constitute a serious breach in accepted standards of scholarship."

In mid-December 2020, two external reviewers brought in by the University of Canterbury dismissed the complaints against Brady and her co-authors, stating that they met the responsibilities of the university's policy and the Education Act 1989. The examiners also observed that Brady's work was based on a lengthy period of research and cited extensively from other sources. Brady welcomed the dismissal of the complaints and called for the University of Canterbury to dismiss the "gagging order" against her.

Views and positions New Zealand's trade with China In early July 2021, Brady urged New Zealand to diversify its foreign and trade policies at the 55th University of Otago Foreign Policy School in Dunedin. Brady expressed concern about the country's trade dependence on China, stating that "New Zealand is strategically dependent on China and its imports for 530 categories of goods and 144 have applications in critical national infrastructure." She urged the New Zealand Government to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to diversify its international trade.

China-Solomon Islands security agreement

In reference to China's security agreement with the Solomon Islands, signed in April 2022, Brady called the Solomon Islands a "failed state" governed by a "corrupt elite", and that New Zealand "could be cut off and encircled" by the People's Liberation Army Navy.

2025 Chinese naval exercises in the Tasman

On 23 February 2025, Brady said that Chinese naval exercises in the Tasman Sea showed that China intended to establish a permanent military presence in the Pacific. She urged New Zealand to do more to defend itself and the Pacific.

Personal life Brady grew up in a not well off West Auckland family in the 1970s. She said she did not put much effort into school.

Brady met her husband when at a Beijing university in the mid-1990s; he was a member of the avant-guard Yuanmingyuan artists' colony which was eventually razed to the ground. They have three children.

Selected works