Why China Is Miles Ahead in a Pacific Race for Influence - The New York Times - 0 views
-
Eight years after Xi Jinping visited Fiji, offering Pacific Island nations a ride on “China’s express train of development,” Beijing is fully entrenched, its power irrepressible if not always embraced. And that has left the United States playing catch-up in a vital strategic arena.
-
All over the Pacific, Beijing’s plans have become more ambitious, more visible — and more divisive. China is no longer just probing for opportunities in the island chains that played a critical role in Japan’s strategic planning before World War II
-
hina is seeking to bind the vast region together in agreements for greater access to its land, seas and digital infrastructure, while promising development, scholarships and training in return.
- ...17 more annotations...
-
From Papua New Guinea to Palau, the countries of the region have jurisdiction over an area of ocean three times as large as the continental United States, stretching from just south of Hawaii to exclusive economic zones butting up against Australia, Japan and the Philippines.
-
Chinese fishing fleets already dominate the seas between the area’s roughly 30,000 islands, seizing huge hauls of tuna while occasionally sharing intelligence on the movements of the U.S. Navy. If China can add ports, airports and outposts for satellite communications — all of which are edging closer to reality in some Pacific Island nations — it could help in intercepting communications, blocking shipping lanes and engaging in space combat.
-
Mr. Wang signed several new agreements, including a security deal that gives China the power to send security forces to quell unrest or protect Chinese investments, and possibly to build a port for commercial and military use.
-
Chinese officials deny that’s the plan. But the deal — along with others in the Solomons and Kiribati whose details have not been disclosed — has been made possible because of something else that’s visible and much-discussed in the Pacific: a longstanding lack of American urgency, innovation and resources.
-
American officials point out that the United States does have big military bases in Guam, along with close ties to countries like the Marshall Islands. And in February, Antony J. Blinken became the first secretary of state in 36 years to visit Fiji, where he announced that the United States would reopen an embassy in the Solomon Islands and engage more on issues like illegal fishing and climate change.
-
The Yanks, it is often said, used to be more productive. Many of the airports and hospitals still in use across the Pacific were built by the United States and its allies during World War II.
-
“The United States doesn’t have a significant presence in the Pacific at all,” said Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand. “I’m always shocked that in Washington they think they have a significant presence when they just don’t.”
-
“There’s a lot of talk,” said Sandra Tarte, the head of the government and international affairs department at the University of the South Pacific in Suva. “And not much real substance.”
-
Mr. Blinken said last week that “China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it.” He promised that the United States would “shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open and inclusive international system.”
-
The start-up embassy in the Solomons also looks less impressive on closer inspection. Replacing an embassy that closed in the 1990s during America’s post-Cold War withdrawal, the outpost will begin in leased office space with two U.S. staff members and five local hires.
-
The American Embassy, by contrast, sits on a hillside far from downtown Suva in a heavily fortified compound. It covers five nations (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu), doesn’t have a full-time ambassador — President Biden nominated someone only last week — and is known for being understaffed.
-
Joseph Veramu, a former U.N. consultant who runs Integrity Fiji, which focuses on values like transparency, said in an interview in Suva that he had invited U.S. embassy officials to events five or six times in recent years. Only once did someone come — without saying much, and refusing to allow photos.
-
But what they do want, and what China seems better at providing right now, is consistent engagement and capacity building.
-
While the United States has shown off Coast Guard vessels it is using to police illegal fishing, China is planning to build maritime transportation hubs and high-tech law enforcement centers where Chinese officers can provide expertise and equipment.
-
“China has always maintained that big and small countries are all equals,” Mr. Xi, the Chinese leader, said in a written message to Pacific foreign ministers on Monday. “No matter how international circumstances fluctuate, China will always be a good friend.”
-
Clearly, China intends to keep emphasizing that friendship means building stuff and offering promises of prosperity, while expecting news censorship, resource access and security opportunities in exchange.