Are we paranoid? Or is the Chinese Communist Party out to get us? Guyon Espiner and John Daniell investigate China's growing influence in New Zealand in this four-part podcast series.

To see more images and details about the series, vist the website here.

Watch the video trailer here.

In July 2020, two Chinese New Zealanders were killed in a car crash. Wang Yuezhong and Xi Weiguo were on their way to parliament, trying to bring a message to the New Zealand government. The dead men wanted us to wake up to the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party, but never got to deliver their message.

This is a story where global politics hits up hard against people's lives.

New Zealand's relationship with China goes deep. We were the first western country to support China's membership of the World Trade Organization in 1997, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy in 2004 and the first developed country to sign a Free Trade Agreement with it in 2008.

Since signing the FTA, trade has gone up between the two countries by more than three hundred percent, to over 32 billion dollars. China is by far our largest trading partner, taking roughly 30 percent of our exports.

But increasingly, China's internal and external politics are coming under scrutiny. Crackdowns in Hong Kong, tensions in the South China Sea and more than a million Uighurs in internment camps, suffering forced labour, sterilisations and torture. One by one, western countries are calling the situation genocide.

But not New Zealand. Instead, we have "grave concerns". Our government continues to walk a thin line - a thin red line - between our traditional western friendships and our increasingly important commercial relationship with China.

In this four-part investigation Guyon Espiner and John Daniell look at China's growing influence in New Zealand. And across the region. They go to protests, universities, parliament, and the homes of dissidents talking to politicians, business leaders, experts and even American military leaders to chart what that influence looks like.

How do you view New Zealand's relationship with the world's rising superpower? Are we paranoid? Or is the Chinese Communist Party out to get us?

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Two Chinese New Zealanders are killed in a car crash while on a mission to warn of the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party. So exactly what is China up to in New Zealand?

To see more images and details about the series, vist the website here.

Two Chinese New Zealanders are killed while on their way to a parliamentary select-committee meeting, to warn of the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party. Their friends, left clutching bloodied fliers, fear it may have been sabotage.

In the first part of this four-part podcast, Guyon Espiner and John Daniell begin to investigate the car crash and examine what's worrying the dissident Chinese community here in New Zealand.

They look at the rise of China and of President Xi Jinping and how that's being reflected in New Zealand's universities and parts of the media. They speak to Chinese New Zealanders who were in Tiananmen Square in 1989, look at how close we've grown to China and ask how New Zealand is walking the thin line between China and our western allies.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Two dissidents die in a car crash. China expert Anne-Marie Brady reports break-ins at her house and office. A US National Security Advisor warns that Beijing wants "servitude". Should we be worried about the Chinese Communist Party? Or are we being paranoid?

To see more images and details about the series, vist the website here.

What really happened on State Highway 1 outside Tokoroa? Was it an accident - or something more sinister?

And as the political stakes rise, who can we trust to tell the truth?

In episode two we dig into the truth about that car crash and those break-ins. What did the police investigations find?

And we head to the US to speak to H.R McMaster, who served as National Security Advisor under President Donald Trump, and who has strong words for China. Plus we hear from former Prime Minister John Key, who led the country as our exports to China grew to record levels, who knows President Xi personally and who is impressed with China's remarkable success in bringing hundreds of millions out of poverty.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details