As New Zealand reshapes ties with China, foreign interference must be brought out of the shadows

In its latest budget, New Zealand said it will fund an investigation into the impact of foreign interference on ethnic communities. Photograph: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

With more than $30bn of new spending, a mere $9m initiative in New Zealand’s latest budget might seem too trivial to mention.

Yet the New Zealand government’s recent decision to fund an investigation into the impact of foreign interference on ethnic communities is a small step towards tackling an outsized problem: how to deal with meddling from foreign states, our largest trading partner included.