Beijing police prompt NZ visa contract switch
New Zealand’s visa application centre in Beijing was hastily switched to a company owned by the Beijing police after intervention from Chinese security authorities, according to official documents.
New Zealand officials were given only two weeks to make the change, but they rushed them through just one day after officials in Wellington were told that a new Beijing-based subcontractor would be needed.
It’s also not clear from any official documents whether any New Zealand staff were aware the Beijing police had a stake in the new company before signing the contract.
Foreign companies are required by Chinese law to partner with a local ‘‘Facility Management Company’’ or FMC.
New Zealand’s visa applications centre in Beijing has been subcontracted by an international company, VF Worldwide Holdings Limited or VFS Global, to the Beijing Shuangxiong Foreign Service Company, an FMC partly owned by the municipal Public Security Bureau, a feared arm of the security apparatus controlling movements inside and out of China.
VFS insists that the relationship is a benign one and that ‘‘Beijing police does not collect or view any visa application data’’.
Immigration NZ agreed, noting that ‘‘processing’’ part of the visa process – where the actual decisions get made – isn’t done by the company.
But briefings released under the Official Information Act show that parts of this arrangement were put in place at the express wishes of the Public Security Bureau.
A memo sent to MBIE chief executive Carolyn Tremain in February said that VFS had been asked to ditch the previous FMC ‘‘at the behest of’’ the Beijing police.
An ‘‘assessment of this change of FMC’’ was undertaken to ensure risks were managed, it said, and that it ‘‘was deemed that the controls in place . . . were sufficient to mitigate potential risks’’.
Peter Brun, a spokesman for VFS, said the Chinese authorities did not instruct VFS Global to use a particular subcontractor.
Instead of the change being made ‘‘at the behest of’’ the Beijing Public Security Bureau, Brun said the change was made because another part of the Chinese state, the Ministry for Public Security, axed the licence of New Zealand’s previous visa company.
The Ministry for Public Security is the main security authority in China and oversees all of the regional Public Security Bureaus.
New Zealand-based Immigration staff approved the change days after it was requested, although they weren’t happy about the lack of information from VFS.
On August 29, Simon Smith, the manager of strategic projects at Immigration NZ, emailed VFS saying it had been informed the previous company running visa applications was ‘‘currently under investigation’’.
VFS had apparently selected another partner, Zhaoyuan, but the Chinese bureaucracy said they wouldn’t approve that company. VFS then picked Beijing Shuangxiong and advised New Zealand that the change would need to be made by September 10, less than a fortnight away.
Smith said it had been ‘‘discussed many times’’ that changes to local arrangements had to go back to New Zealand officials, and couldn’t be made by staff on the ground in China.