PN976. Has China really overreached in the Pacific? This American says yes.

How China overreached and lost its grip in the Pacific
Asia Times     -     30 Mar 23

Beijing’s outreach to strategic region has perceptibly stalled as local tide turns against many of its influence-seeking initiatives and agreements

By DENNY ROY, Senior Research Fellow, East-West Center, Honolulu.

Xi Jinping is building a track record of overreaching in his foreign policies. Chinese attempts to gain influence among the Pacific island states fit this increasingly familiar pattern.

Last year, the security agreement that Beijing reached with the Solomon Islands stunned the larger liberal democratic countries upon which the Pacific island states have traditionally relied for help: the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

However, a few months into 2023, we have a better perspective on China’s drive for influence in the Pacific. The full picture suggests Beijing’s attempt to make the Pacific a Chinese lake has stalled and will face strong counter-currents for the foreseeable future. Much of the opposition Beijing faces in the Pacific is stimulated by the Chinese government’s own actions — a classic characteristic of overreach.

pn933. Papua New Guinea wants security treaty with Australia - defence minister Marles

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday Papua New Guinea had proposed a security treaty between both countries amid increasing tensions in the Pacific islands after China struck a security pact with neighbouring Solomon Islands.

PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko also told ABC Television he had discussed a security treaty with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong during her visit to Port Moresby on Tuesday, while Wong told ABC the discussions were in a "very early stage."

The Solomon Islands has had a tense relationship with the United States and its Pacific allies since striking a security pact with China in April. Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific island countries have said security needs should be met within the region.

"This is an idea that has been put forward by PNG," Marles told ABC radio on Wednesday.

"We have been making it really clear we want to be as close to PNG as we can be. We want to build on the already close military to military relationship that we have with Papua New Guinea, which we see as one of the most important military to military relationships that we have," he added.

Papua New Guinea is Australia's closest northern neighbour, separated by only a few kilometres, and a former colony, but has increasing trade and investment ties with China.

China failed to reach a sweeping trade and security pact with 10 Pacific nations including PNG in June.

Australia and the United States are funding the upgrade of a naval base on PNG's Manus Island, after a failed Chinese offer to redevelop a naval base in 2018.

Chinese navy vessels transit through the narrow Torres Strait separating Australia and PNG, with the activity becoming a point of friction in February when a Chinese ship directed a laser at an Australian military surveillance aircraft in flight over Australia's northern approaches.

The Solomon Islands, which has maritime borders with PNG and Australia, on Tuesday said it was suspending port visits by foreign navies until it puts in place a new approval process.

Marles declined to comment directly on whether Australia had been notified of the moratorium on port visits, after the United States government received notice a week after a U.S. coast guard vessel was unable to make a port call in Honiara.

"We want to see Australia be the natural partner of choice for the countries of the Pacific, that is not something that we take for granted," he said.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa) -- 

pn915. NZ - China Relations: Ardern denies NZ is asleep at wheel as China pushes into Pacific

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has denied New Zealand is asleep at the wheel as China continues its push into the Pacific.

New Zealand has been a significant presence in the region for years and will continue to be one, the prime minister told Breakfast on Tuesday morning.

Ardern said Australia, New Zealand and Japan had the biggest aid and development spend in the Pacific.

"In fact, for this term, we've increased our spend in the Pacific by 45% and that's because of the climate need in the region," she said.

pn905. NZ-China Relations: Sir John Key says Work with China in Pacific— instead of trying to get rid of them

Sir John Key says Work with China in Pacific— instead of trying to get rid of them

Former Prime Minister Sir John Key has called on theGovernment  to work with China on issues in the Pacific instead of trying to get rid of them. 

On Monday, Niue appeared the latest Pacific nation eager to sign a cooperation agreement with China after Samoa inked an economic and technical pact with Beijing at the weekend.  China's foreign minister Wang Yi is currently on tour in the Pacific, seeking a 10-nation deal on security and trade.

Sir John said it's a "waste of time" trying to get China out of the Pacific, and New Zealand should be working with them instead. "When I

was Prime Minister, they [China] wandered around there [Pacific] and built lots of different buildings and most of them weren't terribly good and not up to a use standard that would be beneficial for the Pacific," Key told AM co-host Melissa Chan-Green.

"So we actually tried to convince the Chinese to partner up with us and we built a water reticulation plant in the Cook Islands. So I think going off to China and saying 'hey, don't be in the Pacific' is a waste of time."

pn894. Solomon Islands is an Independent State in an Ocean of independent countries, Not a Chinese, Australian, US or NZ playing field

 

The Pacific is not some rogue part of Tasmania.
 It’s an ocean of independent countries.
 That means diplomacy is needed,
 and temper tantrums are unhelpful. 

ANALYSIS: By Terence Wood

A spectre is haunting the Pacific. It is focused on Solomon Islands today, but has eyes everywhere and might pounce anywhere next.

No, I’m not talking about China. I am talking about us.

More specifically, I’m talking about a particular type of Western security pundit, who hypes danger and itches for confrontation. And I am talking about the way our politicians behave when they strive to win votes by stoking fear of the world outside our border.

​pn889.The China-Solomon Islands Security Deal Changes Everything

 See also article by Prof. Richard Herr at the end of this article.

By Patricia O'Brien,**   East Asia Forum. ANU, 6 Apr 22

The security pact is set to ratchet up the strategic tensions both in the Solomon Islands and in the wider Indo-Pacific.

The controversial new security deal between the Solomon Islands and China has become a prism through which all
other components of Pacific geopolitics, indeed the geopolitics of the greater Indo-Pacific, will now be refracted.

Dr Patricia O'Brien

A draft of the deal, leaked on social media on March 24, set off an immediate firestorm.  A chorus of pleas came from domestic and international quarters alike, requesting the Solomon Islands’ government, headed by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, step back from the deal. Instead, Sogavare fiercely rejected all criticism and expressions of “grave concerns” and on March 31, China and the Solomon Islands began formalizing the agreement. Now Sogavare’s troubled nation and the Indo-Pacific region must grapple with the extensive consequences of this game-changing development.

pn 802. China vows closer ties with Pacific Island countries

 China News Service (ECNS)    -      22 Oct 21

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi chairs the first China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers' Meeting held via video link on Oct. 21, 2021. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday that China is willing to work with Pacific Island countries for a closer comprehensive strategic partnership.

Weekend Reading 19-20 December 2020 (pn647. )

Click on the blue links to read.

• Tribute to Noam Chomsky - Counterpunch.
•  Chomsky website
• e-Tangata, the online Sunday magazine, dedicated to building a stronger Māori and Pacific presence in the New Zealand media.
• December's Pacific Monitor - Asia Development Bank. Covid-19 and the economies of individual Pacific nations. Scroll on to find Cook Islands, Fiji, etc.
• China in the Pacific - ANU Department of Pacific Affairs. China's media strategy in the Pacific. Telling the China story
• Our Parliament's diversity: what a joke -  Bryce Edwards. New Zealand’s politicians are too middle-class to tackle our biggest problems
• Māori Party leaders aspire to transform Aotearoa for the better.  Pulling no punches.

pn628. This is an excellent lecture on What Makes China Tick: Three overlooked fundamentals

b

Ambassador  Bilahari Kausikan, Chairman of the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore and former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, delivered  a "zoom" lecture to The Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan (RETI) on 25 November 2020. Ambassador. Kausikan began his talk by mentioning three fundamental factors about China which he said are seldom sufficiently discussed.

pn605. The US blindspot on China in the Pacific

The US's plans to keep a foothold against China in the Pacific have 'one huge blind spot' by Christopher Woody,  The Business Insider, 18 Nov 20

A series of recent trips by US officials to small island countries in the Pacific and Indian oceans reflects those islands' role in the US's plans to counter China's growing clout. The US has longstanding ties with many of those countries but doesn't always attach the same importance to issues they care about, which could be a problem, experts say.

China, Pacific Geopolitics, and Aussie Aid Views "Penny-Pinching"

China and the Geopolitics of the the Pacific Islands 

pn446

Joanne Wallis, Senior Lecturer, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, writes:
  
Australian debates about the geopolitics of the Pacific islands in many ways represent the broad contours of discussions about Australia’s foreign and strategic policy, notably our relations with China. It’s possible to identify two dominant perspectives in these debates.

The first concerns the risk that, over the coming decades, a potentially hostile China establishes a strategic foothold in the Pacific islands from which it could threaten Australia. Preventing this has been identified as one of Australia’s primary strategic interests for the past 30 years.