Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is set to visit South Pacific island nations starting Thursday to ramp up ties with the strategically located island nations. Wang will be visiting nations like the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and East Timor from May 26 to June 4.
China wants 10 small Pacific nations to endorse a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries in what one leader warns is a game-changing bid by Beijing to wrest control of the region.
A draft of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press shows that China wants to train Pacific police officers, team up on traditional and non-traditional security" and expand law enforcement cooperation. The visit comes after tensions between the West and China escalated amid the recently concluded Quad meeting. Beijing, ahead of the Quad summit said the Indo-Pacific strategy of the US is "bound to fail" as it is vigorously promoted by Washington to "contain" Beijing.
Wang will meet with Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of the Cook Islands and Niue via video, and chair the second China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Fiji, an ANI report reads.
China aims to glean cooperation from these islands in various areas like economy, infrastructure, climate change, public health, policing and security.
“The reason why China’s presence has been welcomed by the regional countries is that China could promote the livelihood of the locals and activate the economic potentials of those islands, experts said. However, some Western media have focused only on the cooperation about security, and tried to exaggerate that the cooperation could spark a new Cold War’ between China and the West in the region,” state media outlet Global Times wrote.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Ned Price expressed concern Wednesday about China's intentions, saying Beijing might use the proposed accords to take advantage of the islands and destabilize the region.
We are concerned that these reported agreements may be negotiated in a rushed, nontransparent process, Price told reporters. He warned that China "has a pattern of offering shadowy, vague deals with little transparency or regional consultation in areas related to fishing, related to resource management, development, development assistance and more recently even security practices.
Price added that agreements that include sending Chinese security officials to the nations "could only seek to fuel regional international tensions and increase concerns over Beijing's expansion of its internal security apparatus to the Pacific.
Experts have said that China's presence could improve the economic potential of the region and improve the livelihood of the locals. Other areas of cooperation between the islands and China include economy, trade, maritime environmental protection, poverty relief, tourism, education, culture and sports.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told the Global Times, “the relationship between China and the island countries has become an example of unity and cooperation between the countries with different scales and political systems."
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, in the meantime, is set to travel to Fiji around the same time as Wang. She hopes to beat Wang in singing a regional security deal with the Pacific. “China has made its intentions clear. So too are the intentions of the new Australian government,” Wong told the Sydney Morning Herald.
--With PTI inputs
