Naisi Chen

Naisi Chen
陳耐鍶
Chen in 2023
Member of the New Zealand Parliament
for Labour party list
In office
17 October 2020 – 14 October 2023
Personal details
BornFebruary 1994 (age 29)
Beijing, China
Political partyLabour
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese陳耐鍶
Simplified Chinese陈耐锶

Naisi Chen (Chinese: , born February 1994) is a New Zealand politician who served as a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party from 2020 to 2023.

Early life and career

Chen was born in Beijing, China and moved to New Zealand at age five. Her father is a Christian pastor and her mother is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine.

She worked as president of the New Zealand Chinese Students' Association and as a director of a business consultancy firm.

Political career

New Zealand Parliament
Years Term Electorate List Party
2020–2023 53rd List 38 Labour

At the 2017 election, she stood for parliament, after being approached by Labour Party MP Raymond Huo. She was ranked 50th on the Labour party list. In addition, Chen contested the East Coast Bays electorate, but was defeated by Erica Stanford. The previous Labour candidate for the seat withdrew.

She stood again at the 2020 election and was ranked 38 on the Labour Party list. Chen also contested the Botany electorate. Despite losing the Botany electorate to National's Christopher Luxon by a margin of 3,999 votes, she was ranked high enough on the Labour list to get into Parliament.

Ahead of the 2023 election, she sought the Labour Party nomination in the seat of Auckland Central after previous candidate and fellow list MP Helen White was instead selected as Labour's candidate for the neighboring seat of Mount Albert. She was defeated in the election to be Labour's candidate by affordable housing advocate Oscar Sims in April 2023. She lost her seat in the general election.

Alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party

In September 2017, New Zealand sinologist and University of Canterbury political scientist Anne-Marie Brady alleged in a conference paper that Chen had "close […] connections" to the United Front, a network of groups and individuals and strategy the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to advance its agenda. Brady cited Chen's leadership of New Zealand Chinese Students' Association, a "united front-related organization", as evidence. Chen said she felt "hurt" by the accusations. Prior to the 2020 election, members of the group New Zealand Values Alliance distributed flyers in Auckland alleging that Chen was a "CCP agent".


This page was last updated at 2023-11-26 19:11 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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