Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Australia is moving forward to strengthen ties with small island nations off its east coast, backing against China’s growing influence in the Pacific Ocean, as the virus outbreak makes travel difficult.
The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pledged to supply 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. Recently, it also signed an “emblematic” agreement with Fiji, one of the most populous nations in the region, to allow military deployments and exercises in the other’s jurisdiction.
“China has largely failed in action in providing Covid-related support to the region,” he said. Jonathan Pryke, who directs research on the region for the Lowy Institute think tank based in Sydney. “Australia has amassed a fair amount of goodwill without forgetting the Pacific in times of crisis.”
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Over the past decade, China’s growing influence in the 14 Pacific islands, with a cumulative population of only 13 million, spread over thousands of islands and atolls in a region that extends to 15% of the world’s surface , has raised alarms in the US and Australia. Diplomats and intelligence officials fear that Beijing’s ultimate goal may be to establish a naval base that will live up to its military strategies.
The battle for influence in the region comes after China hit Australia with a series of damage commercial reprisals following Morrison’s decision to seek independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Australia’s largest trading partner has put a brake on everything from wine to lobsters, prompting Canberra to present a challenge to barley tariffs at the WTO.
Stopped projects
However, Australia has made forays into the Pacific after island nations quickly blocked incoming flights and cruises to keep the virus away from vulnerable communities in the aid-dependent region. China also ordered workers developing projects related to its Belt and Road Initiative to return home and reduced the diplomatic staff of the ten Pacific nations that recognize Beijing instead of Taiwan.
In Papua New Guinea, rich in resources, the most populous nation in the region and, by far, the one that has received the most financial support from China, work on one of the region’s highest-profile infrastructure projects went stop this year, according to Paul Barker, CEO of Institute of National Affairs, a non-profit economic research group funded in part by the private sector based in Port Morseby.
Chinese personnel left the site of the marine industrial zone in Madang, on the nation’s northern coast, which has received at least $ 73 million in funding from Beijing and will be used as a base for tuna fishing, Barker said. who has lived in Port Moresby for four decades. . While other projects backed by China around the capital of Papua New Guinea have also stalled this year, he said he hopes China’s presence on the ground, along with offers of financial aid, could increase again when the pandemic is under control.
“It makes sense that Papua New Guinea wants to get competitive contractors and funding, and if the Chinese offer 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 to get to know them, they also want to be offered more opportunities.”
“Cold War mentality”
China has not been completely inactive. New Chinese ambassadors to the two countries that recognized him in Taiwan in 2019: the Solomon Islands, one of the region’s largest economies, and Kiribati. The new envoy to the former British colony raised his eyebrows when a the photo taken on his arrival seemed to show him walking by about 30 local men lying on his stomach.
The nation’s foreign ministry said in an email response to questions that ties with Pacific island countries advanced during 2020 despite the impact of Covid-19. He said Beijing shared medical experience and provided material to nations during the pandemic, while Belt and Road projects, which included a new road west of Papua New Guinea and a stadium in the Solomon Islands, had “constantly progressed.”
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“China hopes that all other countries can adopt a mutually respectful attitude and an open-minded spirit to facilitate the stability and prosperity of the region, instead of maintaining a zero-sum and cold war mentality and building” small “exclusive” groups, the ministry said.
According to a September report, Kiribati’s plan to build two major transhipment ports appears to be integrated into Belt and Road. government-supported think tank, Australian Strategic Policy Institute. This would “increase the prospect of Chinese military bases in the central Pacific” across major sea lanes and near U.S. bases, including Hawaii, according to the report.
China also signed one memorandum of understanding last month to potentially fund a new $ 150 million marine base south of Papua New Guinea at the Australian gate. The agreement may have geopolitical implications, especially because the impoverished area is not close to rich fishing stocks.
“A better option”
“The pandemic will not deter China from pursuing 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 an administration of Joe Biden, there is an opportunity for the United States and related democracies to show the sovereign nations of the Pacific that they have a better choice with whom they choose to work.”
Lawmakers in Washington and Canberra have warned developing countries to avoid taking out Chinese loans, saying Beijing will use debt as geopolitical leverage. China has spent at least $ 1.7 billion in aid and loans to the Pacific Islands over the past decade, much of it on much-needed transportation 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 2 billion Australian dollars ($ 1.5 billion) infrastructure funds for the region in 2018. The United States, for its part, established a Pacific Affairs Directorate within the White House National Security Council, which provides a center for policy coordination in the region with other related countries.
With the The economic devastation of the pandemic will continue for years, the geostrategic competition in the region will only intensify as nations seek to recover, said Pryke of the Lowy Institute.
“Beijing will be aware that Covid has set up an economic crisis that has made the region even more vulnerable and desperate for foreign aid and lending, creating a better strategic environment to promote its interests,” he said.
– With the assistance of Jing Li