Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Australia is seeking to strengthen ties with small island nations off the east coast and back off against China’s growing influence in the Pacific, as the virus outbreak hampers travel.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government has pledged to provide its neighbors with Covid-19 vaccines by 2021 as part of a A $ 500 million package aimed at achieving “full immunization coverage” in the region. It also recently signed a “landmark” agreement with Fiji, one of the most populous countries in the region, to allow for military deployment and exercises in each other’s jurisdiction.
“China has largely taken no action with regard to providing Covid-related support in the region,” said Jonathan Pryke, who leads research into the region for Sydney-based think tank the Lowy Institute. “Australia has built up a good dose of goodwill by not forgetting the Pacific in times of crisis.”
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Over the past decade, China’s growing influence over the 14 Pacific countries – whose cumulative population of just 13 million is spread across thousands of islands and atolls in a region spanning 15% of the world’s surface – has raised alarm bells in the US and Australia. Diplomats and intelligence officials fear that Beijing’s ultimate goal could be to create a naval base that would overthrow their military strategies.
The battle for influence in the region comes after China hit Australia with a series of damaging consequences trade achievements following Morrison’s decision to open an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Australia’s largest trading partner has restricted everything from wine to lobsters, leading Canberra to file an objection to the barley tariffs with the WTO.
Projects blocked
Still, Australia has made its way into the Pacific after island states quickly blocked inbound flights and cruise ships to keep the virus away from vulnerable communities in the aid-dependent region. China also ordered workers developing projects related to the Belt and Road Initiative to return home, and the number of diplomatic staff in the 10 Pacific countries that recognize Beijing rather than Taiwan.
According to Paul Barker, CEO of Institute of National Affairs, a nonprofit economic research group partially funded by the private sector, based in Port Morseby.
Chinese personnel left the site of the Madang Maritime Industrial Zone on the country’s north coast, which has received at least $ 73 million in funding from Beijing and will be used as a base to fish for tuna, said Barker, who has been operating for four decades. lives in Port Moresby. . While other China-backed projects around Papua New Guinea’s capital have also stalled this year, he said he expects China’s presence on the ground, along with offers of financial aid, to increase again when the pandemic falls below control is.
“It makes sense that Papua New Guinea wants competitive contractors and funding, and if the Chinese offered that in the future, the government will be interested,” he said. “While most Papua New Guineans tend to look to their ‘Southern friends’ in Australia because they know them, they also want to get more opportunities.”
‘Cold War mentality’
China has not been completely inactive. New Chinese ambassadors in the two countries that recognized it over Taiwan in 2019: the Solomon Islands, one of the region’s largest economies, and Kiribati. The new envoy to the former British colony raised eyebrows when a photo taken on his arrival seemed to show him walking over about 30 local men lying on their bellies.
The country’s State Department said in an email response to inquiries that ties with Pacific countries have progressed in 2020 despite the impact of Covid-19. It said Beijing shared medical experience and supplied materials to countries during the pandemic, while Belt and Road projects, including a new highway in western Papua New Guinea and a stadium in the Solomon Islands, “made steady progress.”
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“China hopes that all other countries can adopt a mutually respectful attitude and open-minded spirit to facilitate the stability and prosperity of the region, rather than maintain the ‘zero-sum’ mentality and the Cold War mindset and exclusive ‘small’ groups “to build,” ministry said.
Kiribati’s plan to build two major transport ports appears to be integrated into the Belt and Road, according to a September report from government-sponsored think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute. That would “increase the prospect of Chinese military bases in the middle of the Pacific” through major shipping lanes and near US bases, including Hawaii, the report said.
China also signed one Memorandum of Understanding last month to potentially fund a new $ 150 million marine base in southern Papua New Guinea, on Australia’s doorstep. The deal could have geopolitical implications, especially since the impoverished area is nowhere near rich fish stocks.
‘A better choice’
“The pandemic will not stop China from pursuing its strategy in the South Pacific as it wants to continue to influence weak, fragile democracies,” said Paul Maddison, director of the University of New South Wales. Defense Research Institute. “Under a Joe Biden administration, there is an opportunity for the US and like-minded democracies to show sovereign Pacific nations that they have a better choice of who to work with.”
Lawmakers in Washington and Canberra have warned developing countries not to take out Chinese loans, saying Beijing would use the debt as a geopolitical leverage. According to data from the Lowy Institute, China has spent at least $ 1.7 billion in aid and loans to the Pacific islands in the past decade, much of it on much-needed transportation and utility infrastructure.
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In response, Australia – seen by China as a US puppet – unveiled an A $ 2 billion ($ 1.5 billion) infrastructure fund for the region in 2018. Meanwhile, the US has established a Directorate of Pacific Affairs within the White House National Security Council, which is a hub for coordinating policy in the region with other like-minded countries.
With the economic devastation from the pandemic that will continue for years to come, geostrategic competition in the region will only increase as countries try to recover, said Pryke of the Lowy Institute.
Beijing will be aware that Covid has triggered an economic crisis that has made the region even more vulnerable and desperate for foreign aid and loans, creating a better strategic environment to pursue its interests, ”he said.
– With the help of Jing Li