The country's top intelligence agency believes that China is the only nation pursuing espionage in New Zealand at scale, according to a report released Thursday.

The East Asian nation may also be the "most active" in terms of foreign interference activity in New Zealand, the agency said.

The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service report said the activity had ramped up over the past year after describing the country's threat environment as being the "most challenging of recent times" in its 2025 analysis.

"The kinds of malign behaviours and activities we have seen over the past 12 months are proving even more threatening," said Andrew Hampton, director-general of security at NZSIS, in the report.

Espionage warning

The agency's fourth threat environment report said several states conducted espionage against New Zealand.

"The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the only country we have detected doing it at scale," the report said.

Although China's intelligence services "may be the most active at espionage", it should not prevent New Zealand organisations from engaging or doing business with entities there, the report said.

"New Zealand businesses should take an 'eyes wide open' approach to espionage across all international markets where they operate."

The report also noted that China's national security laws compelled any individual or organisation in China to comply with requests from its intelligence services.

In a case study, NZSIS said that Purple Mountain Observatory, an organisation based in China with close links to its government, was found in the past year attempting to install ground-based space infrastructure (GBSI) in New Zealand.

"They worked with a local company that was likely unaware of the equipment's capability to collect intelligence of military value and would have no idea who was receiving the data," the report said.

NZSIS was able to disrupt the activity, but it was not the first time the organisation had attempted to do so and was unlikely to be the last, the report said.

"Legitimate GBSI operators in New Zealand and those in the Pacific are encouraged to sharpen their due diligence practices as future attempts will likely use more obfuscation."

NZSIS has also observed increased targeting of professional networking sites and online job platforms for espionage purposes by China's military intelligence services, the report said.

Current and former New Zealand government officials who had access to classified or sensitive information were typically targeted, it said.

Successful candidates were pressured to provide non-public information for unspecified clients who have obscured their links back to the Chinese government, it said.

Privileged military, political and economic intelligence were what they were after, the report said.

Foreign interference concern

The report highlighted two main forms of foreign inteference: political and societal.

It said the former included acts by a foreign state intended to subvert, disrupt or influence governance, democratic institutions and processes such as elections or policymaking.

Societal interference was intended to influence or disrupt New Zealand's communities and non-government sectors, it said.

"Over the past 12 months, NZSIS has observed states deceptively and coercively engaging with community groups and attempting to suppress social and protest movements," the agency said.

"The PRC continues to be the most active at conducting foreign interference in New Zealand, but there are several other countries doing it as well to varying degrees and scale," the report said.

New Zealand's ethnic communities were frequently the targets of such activity, it said.

"It is the state actors who are the focus of NZSIS's attention - communities are the people we are trying to protect."

The report also said the Pacific region remained an area of high interest and competition between states seeking to influence countries and communities.

RNZ has approached the Chinese Embassy for comment.