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Anne-Marie Sharon Brady (born 1966) is a New Zealand academic and Professor of Political Science at the University of Canterbury. She specialises in Chinese politics, Antarctic and Arctic politics, Pacific Ocean, and New Zealand Foreign Policy.
Brady is the first female political scientist to be elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of New Zealand, Te Apārangi.
Her research on Antarctic politics, China's polar interests, and the Chinese Communist Party's domestic and foreign policy, in particular, foreign interference activities, has been a catalyst contributing to policy adjustments by governments of the United States, to New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union.
Brady is the founding and executive Editor of The Polar Journal, published by Taylor & Francis.
Also in 2019, Brady was awarded the New Zealand Women of Influence Global Influence Award, to mark her contribution towards placing the spotlight on the issue of Chinese influence in the South Pacific. The citation read:
In late 2017, she claimed to have become the target of a campaign of intimidation. A number of related properties were burgled, including her university office and home. , progress was being made in the investigation and Interpol were involved. In December 2018, 303 academics, think-tankers, journalists, human-rights activists, politicians signed an open letter that was published on the Czech Republic academic website Sinopsis condemning the harassment campaign against Brady and urging the New Zealand Government to protect her so she could continue her research.
In mid-February 2019, it was reported that the police investigation into the burglary and other incidents had concluded as unresolved. While an ABC's Four Corners documentary claimed that "Australian intelligence agencies have identified China's spy service as the prime suspect behind the intimidation of University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded in April 2019 that she had seen "nothing - no evidence - to support the claims that were made in that story".
On 8 March 2019, it was reported that Brady had been blocked from submitting evidence to the New Zealand Parliament's justice select committee examining potential foreign influence in the New Zealand elections. The four Labour members of the justice select committee, including former chair Raymond Huo, had decided to exclude Brady on "procedural grounds" that her testimony had passed the deadline; Huo had been named as a pro-CCP influencer in Brady's "Magic Weapons" paper. Their action was criticised by the opposition National Party including electoral reform spokesperson Nick Smith. In response to media coverage and criticism from the National Party, the Labour Party announced that Huo had reversed his earlier decision and extended an invitation for Brady to speak to select committee members.
In March 2021, Brady claimed that a New Zealander who had been exposed by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service for gathering information on behalf of an unidentified foreign intelligence agency about New Zealand–based dissidents had been working for China. Brady claimed that the CCP targeted the Chinese diaspora since it feared that they could "nurture and support political change in China" and in order to influence foreign societies.
In June 2021, Brady and two other academics said that they suspect that the Chinese government were spying on their lectures, by sending students to attend, photograph and film lectures. The Chinese Embassy dismissed these claims, and the Minister for Education Chris Hipkins advised universities and lecturers to inform the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service if they have any concerns about espionage in their lecture halls.
Brady's Twitter account was temporarily suspended as a result of her tweets that made fun of Xi Jinping and the lack of international positive reaction to the 100th Anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. She had suggested in one tweet that an alternative headline for a news article about the celebrations: “Xi: its my Party and I’ll cry if I want to”. A The Times journalist said that the block was probably an algorithmic response to a number of complaints from CCP agents that would have been received by Twitter. Her account was subsequently restored.
In response, numerous international scholars signed a public letter to Cheryl de la Rey, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury, criticising the review of Brady's scholarship as being without merit and a threat to academic freedom.
In mid-December 2020, two external reviewers brought in by the University of Canterbury dismissed the complaints against Brady and her co-authors, stating that they met the responsibilities of the university's policy and the Education Act 1989. The examiners also observed that Brady's work was based on a lengthy period of research and cited extensively from other sources. Brady welcomed the dismissal of the complaints and called for the University of Canterbury to dismiss the "gagging order" against her.
Brady met her husband when at a Beijing university in the mid-1990s; he was a member of the avant-guard Yuanmingyuan artists' colony which was eventually razed to the ground. They have three children.
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