Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Australia is working to strengthen ties with the small island nations on its east coast, pushing back against China’s growing influence in the Pacific Ocean as the virus outbreak hinders travel.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government has promised to provide its neighbors with Covid-19 vaccines in 2021 as part of the A $ 500 million package aimed at achieving “complete immunization coverage” in the region. It has also recently signed a “landmark” agreement with Fiji, one of the most populous nations in the region, to allow military deployment and exercises under the jurisdiction of the other.
“China has largely failed to take action on providing Covid-related support to the region,” he said. Jonathan Pryke, who is leading research on the region for the Sydney think tank, the Lowy Institute. “Australia has accumulated a good deal of goodwill, not to mention the Pacific in a time of crisis.”
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Over the past decade, China’s growing influence in the Pacific islands of the 14 nations – with a combined population of just 13 million, spans thousands of islands and atolls in a region that spans 15 percent of the world’s surface – has triggered alarms in the US and Australia. Diplomats and intelligence officials fear that Beijing’s ultimate goal could be to create a naval base to support their military strategies.
The struggle for influence in the region comes after China hit Australia with a series of damages commercial retaliation following Morrison’s decision to seek an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Australia’s largest trading partner has focused on everything from wine to lobster, prompting Canberra to challenge the WTO barley tariffs.
Blocked projects
However, Australia made forays into the Pacific after island nations quickly blocked incoming flights and cruise ships to keep the virus away from vulnerable communities in the aid-dependent region. China has also ordered workers developing projects related to the Belt and Road Initiative to return home and has reduced diplomatic staff in the 10 Pacific nations that recognize Beijing instead of Taiwan.
In resource-rich Papua New Guinea, the region’s most populous nation and by far the largest beneficiary of China’s financial support, work on one of the region’s largest infrastructure projects has stalled this year, according to Paul Barker. executive director of Institute of National Affairs, a non-profit economic research group partially funded by the private sector based in Port Morseby.
Chinese personnel have left the site of the marine industrial zone in Madang, on the nation’s north coast, which has received at least $ 73 million in funding from Beijing and will be used as a base for tuna fishing, said Barker, who lives in Port Moresby for four decades. While other Chinese-backed projects around Papua New Guinea’s capital have stalled this year, he said China’s presence on the ground, along with financial aid offerings, is expected to increase again when the pandemic is under way. control.
“It makes sense for Papua New Guinea to want to get competitive contractors and finance, and if the Chinese provide that in the future, the government will be interested,” he said. “While most new Guineans in Papua tend to look to ‘their southern friends’ in Australia because they know them, they want to be offered even more opportunities.”
“Cold War mentality”
China has not been completely inactive. New Chinese ambassadors in the two countries that recognized him over Taiwan in 2019 – Solomon Islands, one of the largest economies in the region and Kiribati. The new envoy from the former British colony raised his eyebrows when he the photo taken on his arrival seemed to show him walking over about 30 local men lying on his stomach.
The nation’s foreign ministry said in an e-mail response to questions that ties with the Pacific islands have progressed in 2020, despite the impact of Covid-19. According to him, Beijing shared medical experience and provided materials to nations during the pandemic, while Belt and Road projects, including a new highway in West Papua New Guinea and a stadium in the Solomon Islands “are constantly progressing.”
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“China hopes that all other countries can adopt a mutually respectful attitude and an open spirit to facilitate the stability and prosperity of the region, instead of maintaining the ‘zero sum’ and cold war mentality and building exclusive ‘small groups’.” said the ministry.
Kiribati’s plan to build two major transhipment ports appears to be integrated into the Belt and Road, according to a September report by think tank supported by the Australian Institute of Strategic Policy Government. This would “enhance the perspective of Chinese military bases along the central Pacific” through major sea routes and near US bases, including Hawaii, the report said.
China also signed a Memorandum of Understanding last month to potentially fund a new $ 150 million naval base in southern Papua New Guinea, on the threshold of Australia. The agreement may have geopolitical implications, especially since the poor area is not close to rich fishing stocks.
“A better choice”
“The pandemic will not discourage China from implementing its strategy in the South Pacific because it wants to continue to influence its weak and fragile democracies,” said Paul Maddison, director of the University of New South Wales. Defense Research institute. “In a Joe Biden administration, there is an opportunity for the United States and democracies with the same idea to show the sovereign nations of the Pacific that they have a better choice of who to choose to work with.”
Lawmakers in Washington and Canberra have warned developing countries to avoid Chinese lending, saying Beijing will use debt as a geopolitical lever. China has spent at least $ 1.7 billion in aid and loans to the Pacific Islands over the past decade, much of it for much-needed transportation and utility infrastructure, according to the Lowy Institute.
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In response, Australia – seen by China as an American puppet – revealed A $ 2 billion ($ 1.5 billion) the infrastructure fund for the region in 2018. The US, meanwhile, has set up a Pacific Business Directorate within the White House National Security Council, which provides a hub for coordinating policy in the region with other countries with the same idea.
With economic devastation due to the pandemic will persist for years, geostrategic competition in the region will only intensify as nations want to recover, said Pryke of the Lowy Institute.
“Beijing will be aware that Covid has created an economic crisis that has made the region even more vulnerable and desperate for foreign aid and loans, creating a better strategic environment to promote its interests,” he said. .
– With the assistance of Jing Li