Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Photographer: Richard Vogel / AP
Australia is promoting ties with small island nations off the eastern coastline, pushing against China’s growing influence in the Pacific as the outbreak of viruses hinders travel.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government has promised to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to its neighbors by 2021 as part of a A $ 500 million package aimed at achieving full immunization coverage in the region. It also recently signed an ‘important’ agreement with Fiji, one of the region’s most populous countries, to allow military deployments and exercises in each other’s jurisdiction.
“China has largely lacked in its support for Covid-related support in the region,” he said. Jonathan Pryke, who is leading research on the region for the think tank Lowy Institute in Sydney. “Australia has built up an amount of goodwill by not forgetting the Pacific in a time of crisis.”
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Over the past decade, China’s growing influence on the Pacific Islands with 14 countries – of which the cumulative population of just 13 million over thousands of islands and atolls in an area that extends over 15% of the world’s area – has triggered alarm bells the US and Australia. Diplomats and intelligence officials fear Beijing’s ultimate goal may be to establish a naval base that will advance their military strategies.
The battle for influence in the region comes after China hit Australia with a series of damages trade revenge following Morrison’s decision to seek an independent investigation into the origin of the coronavirus. Australia’s largest trading partner has put everything from wine to lobster, which has led Canberra to present a challenge against wort tariffs at the WTO.
Projects stopped
Yet Australia has made inroads in 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 linked to its Belt and Road Initiative to return home, and has reduced diplomatic staff in the ten Pacific countries that recognize Beijing instead of Taiwan.
According to Paul Barker, CEO of Paul Barker, in Papua New Guinea, the region’s most populous country and by far the largest recipient of China’s financial support, work on one of the region’s discussed infrastructure projects has stalled. Institute of National Affairs, a non-profit economic research group funded in part by the private sector in Port Morseby.
Chinese personnel have left the marine industrial zone in Madang on the north coast of the country, which has received at least $ 73 million in Beijing and will be used as a base for fishing for tuna, Barker said. . While other China-backed projects around the capital of Papua New Guinea have also come to a standstill, he said he expects China’s presence on the ground, along with offers of financial aid, to increase again when the pandemic strikes. control is.
“It is logical that Papua New Guinea wants to get competitive contractors and financing, and if the Chinese offer it in future, the government will be interested,” he said. “Most Papua New Guineans tend to look to their ‘southern friends’ in Australia because they know them, but they also want to offer more opportunities. ‘
‘Mentality of the Cold War’
China has not yet been completely inactive. New Chinese ambassadors in the two countries that recognized it over Taiwan in 2019 – Solomon Islands, one of the region’s largest economies, and Kiribati. The new envoy in the former British colony raised eyebrows when a It looks like the photo he took on his arrival shows him walking over about 30 local men on their stomachs.
The country’s foreign ministry said in an email in response to questions that ties with the Pacific islands had progressed during 2020, despite the impact of Covid-19. Beijing is said to have shared medical experience and provided materials to nations during the pandemic, while the Belt and Road projects, including a new highway in West Papua New Guinea and a stadium in the Solomon Islands, “gradually has progressed “.
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“China hopes that all other countries can adopt a mutually respectful attitude and open-mindedness to facilitate the stability and prosperity of the region, instead of maintaining ‘zero-sum’ and the Cold War mentality and exclusive ‘small groups’. to build up, “the ministry said.
According to Kiribati’s plan to transport two major ports for transport, it will be integrated into the Belt and Road, according to a September report by government-backed think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute. It will increase “the prospect of Chinese military bases throughout downtown Pacific” through major sea lanes and near U.S. bases, including Hawaii, the report said.
China also has a memorandum of understanding last month to fund a possible $ 150 million new marine base in southern Papua New Guinea, on the doorstep of Australia. The agreement could have geopolitical consequences, especially since the impoverished area is not close to rich fish stocks.
‘A better choice’
“The pandemic will not deter China from carrying out its strategy in the South Pacific because it wants to continue to exert its influence on weak, fragile democracies,” said Paul Maddison, director of the University of New York. South Wales, said. Defense Research Institute. “Under a Joe Biden government, there is an opportunity for the US and like-minded democracies to show sovereign countries in the Pacific that they have a better choice with whom they prefer to work.”
Lawmakers in Washington and Canberra have warned developing countries to avoid Chinese loans, saying Beijing will use the debt as geopolitical leverage. China has spent at least $ 1.7 billion on aid and loans to the Pacific Islands over the past decade, much of which is to much-needed transportation and utility infrastructure, according to Lowy Institute data.
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In response, Australia – seen by China as an American puppet – unveiled an A $ 2 billion ($ 1.5 billion). Infrastructure fund for the region in 2018. The US has meanwhile set up a Directorate of Pacific Affairs within the White House National Security Council, which provides a focal point for coordinating policies in the region with other like-minded countries.
With the Pryke of the Lowy Institute says Pryke, due to the economic devastation of the pandemic for years, the geostrategic competition in the region will only increase.
“Beijing will know that Covid has created an economic crisis that has made the region even more vulnerable and desperate for foreign aid and loans, which has created a better strategic environment to advance its interests,” he said.
– With help by Jing Li