China’s embassy in Wellington has rejected New Zealand’s latest security assessment as the product of “foreign interference” and a “Cold War mentality”, as tension grows in a relationship already strained by geopolitical and security concerns. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service’s annual threat report identified China as the only country conducting espionage “at scale”. In the Thursday report, the agency’s director general Andrew Hampton described the current threat environment as “the...

New Delhi has issued names for 27 locations in Arunachal Pradesh on its official maps, including sensitive sites near the disputed border with China, in a move that an analyst warned could complicate efforts to repair bilateral ties. The Indian government announced the move on Friday, just a day after officials from the two countries held a working-level consultation in New Delhi to discuss border management and reaffirm the need for peace along the Line of Actual Control. Beijing has long...