Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Australia is moving to strengthen ties with small island nations along its east coast, resisting China’s growing influence in the Pacific Ocean as the outbreak of the virus hinders travel.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government promised to provide its neighbors with Covid-19 vaccines in 2021 as part of a A $ 500 million package aimed at achieving “full immunization coverage” in the region. It also recently signed an “historic” agreement with Fiji, one of the most populous nations in the region, to allow military detachments and exercises in each other’s jurisdiction.
“China is largely lacking when it comes to providing Covid-related support in the region,” he said. Jonathan Pryke, who heads research in the region for the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. “Australia has accumulated goodwill by not forgetting the Pacific in times of crisis.”
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Over the past decade, China’s growing influence in the 14 Pacific Island nations – whose cumulative population of just 13 million is spread across thousands of islands and atolls in a region that spans 15% of the world’s surface – has raised the alarm in the USA and Australia. Diplomats and intelligence officials fear that Beijing’s ultimate goal is to establish a naval base that alters its military strategies.
The battle for influence in the region comes after China hit Australia with a series of commercial reprisals after Morrison’s decision to pursue an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Australia’s largest trading partner has restricted everything from wine to lobsters, prompting Canberra to file a lawsuit against WTO barley tariffs.
Stopped Projects
Still, Australia made inroads into the Pacific after island nations quickly blocked flights and cruise ships to keep the virus away from vulnerable communities in the aid-dependent region. China also ordered workers who developed projects linked to its Belt and Road Initiative to return home and reduced the diplomatic team in the ten Pacific nations that recognize Beijing instead of Taiwan.
In resource-rich Papua New Guinea, the region’s most populous country and by far the largest recipient of financial support from China, work on one of the region’s highest profile infrastructure projects has been halted this year, according to Paul Barker , executive chairman of Institute of National Affairs, a non-profit economic research group partially funded by the private sector based in Port Morseby.
The Chinese team left the site of the marine industrial zone in Madang, on the north coast of the country, which received at least $ 73 million in funding from Beijing and will be used as a base for fishing for tuna, said Barker, who has lived in Port Moresby for four years. decades. While other China-supported projects around the capital of Papua New Guinea have also dragged on to a standstill this year, he said he expects China’s local presence, along with offers of financial aid, to increase again when the pandemic is over. under control.
“It is logical that Papua New Guinea wants to obtain competitive contractors and financing, and if the Chinese offer this from now on, the government will be interested,” he said. “While most Papua New Guinea tend to look at their ‘southern friends’ in Australia because they know them, they also want them to have more opportunities.”
‘Cold War mentality’
China is not completely inactive. New Chinese ambassadors to the two countries that recognized her about Taiwan in 2019 – Solomon Islands, one of the region’s largest economies, and Kiribati. The new envoy in the former British colony raised his eyebrows when a the photo taken on his arrival seemed to show him walking about 30 local men lying face down.
The country’s foreign ministry said in an email response to questions that ties with Pacific Island countries progressed during 2020, despite the impact of Covid-19. He said Beijing shared medical experiences and provided materials to nations during the pandemic, while Belt and Road projects, including a new highway in western Papua New Guinea and a stadium in the Solomon Islands, were “steadily progressing” .
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“China hopes that all other countries will be able to adopt an attitude of mutual respect and 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’ ”, The ministry said.
Kiribati’s plan to build two large transhipment ports appears destined to be integrated into the Belt and Road, according to a September report by Australian strategic policy institute. This “would increase the prospect of Chinese military bases in the center of the Pacific”, across major sea routes and close to American bases, including Hawaii, the report said.
China also signed a Memorandum of Understanding last month to potentially finance a new $ 150 million marine base in southern Papua New Guinea, on Australia’s doorstep. The deal may have geopolitical implications, especially since the impoverished area is nowhere near rich fishing stocks.
‘A better choice’
“The pandemic will not prevent China from executing its strategy in the South Pacific, because it wants to continue to exert its influence on weak and fragile democracies,” said Paul Maddison, director of the University of New South Wales Defense Research Institute. “Under Joe Biden, there is an opportunity for the United States and democracies with similar ideas to show sovereign Pacific nations that they have a better choice with whom they choose to work.”
Lawmakers in Washington and Canberra have warned developing countries to avoid taking Chinese loans, saying Beijing would use the debt as a geopolitical lever. China has spent at least $ 1.7 billion on aid and loans to the Pacific Islands over the past decade, much of it on transport infrastructure and utilities, according to data from the Lowy Institute.
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In response, Australia – seen by China as an American puppet – revealed an A $ 2 billion ($ 1.5 billion) infrastructure fund for the region in 2018. The U.S., meanwhile, has established a Pacific Affairs Directorate within the White House National Security Council, which provides a center for policy coordination in the region with other countries with similar interests.
Like As the economic devastation of the pandemic is expected to last for years, geostrategic competition in the region should only intensify as nations seek to recover, said Pryke of the Lowy Institute.
“Beijing will know that Covid has shaped 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 help of Jing Li