SUVA, Fiji — Take a stroll through the city where China’s foreign minister met the leaders of nearly a dozen Pacific countries on Monday, and China’s stamp is unmistakable.
To one side of Fiji’s capital Suva, a bridge has been rebuilt with Chinese loans and unveiled with the country’s prime minister next to the Chinese ambassador. On the other side, on Queen Elizabeth Drive, is Beijing’s hulking new embassy, where the road out front has been repaired by workers in neon vests bearing the name of a Chinese state-owned company.
Above all, Wanguo Friendship Plaza, a skeletal apartment tower built by a Chinese company and intended to be the tallest building in the South Pacific, until the Fiji government halted construction due to security concerns.
Eight years after Xi Jinping visited Fiji and offered Pacific countries a ride on the “Chinese development train,” Beijing is fully entrenched, its power unstoppable, if not always embraced. And that has led the United States to catch up in a vital strategic arena.
Across the Pacific, Beijing’s plans have become more ambitious, more visible and more divisive. China no longer just looks for opportunities in the island chains that played a crucial role in Japan’s strategic planning before World War II. With China’s foreign minister halfway through an eight-country tour of the Pacific islands, China is seeking to tie the vast region together in agreements for better access to its land, seas and digital infrastructure, while in return developing, scholarships and training promises.
China’s interest in the Pacific islands, made even more explicit by a series of recently leaked documents, starts with maritime real estate. From Papua New Guinea to Palau, the countries of the region have jurisdiction over an ocean area three times the size of the continental United States, stretching from just south of Hawaii to exclusive economic zones bordering Australia, Japan and the Philippines.
Chinese fishing fleets already dominate the seas between the approximately 30,000 islands in the area, seizing massive quantities of tuna and occasionally sharing information about the movements of the US Navy. If China can add ports, airports and outposts for satellite communications — all of which are closer to reality in some Pacific countries — it could help intercept communications, block shipping lanes and engage in space battles.
China has already shown how to achieve ‘elite capture’ in countries with small populations, high development needs and leaders who often silence local news media. And while China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi was not quick to secure the sweeping proposal he pitched to a region that has long emphasized sovereignty and consensus, he has already won a number of smaller victories.
Most importantly, in the Solomon Islands, 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 build a port for commercial and military use.
Chinese officials deny this is the plan. But the deal — along with others in the Solomons and Kiribati whose details have not been disclosed — has been made possible by something else visible and hotly debated in the Pacific: a long-standing lack of American urgency, innovation and resources.
For many observers, the South Pacific today reveals what America’s decline looks like. Even if officials in Washington have tried to step up their game, they are still way behind, confusing speeches for impact and interest for influence.
“There’s a lot of talk,” said Sandra Tarte, head of the government and international affairs department at the University of the South Pacific in Suva. “And not much real content.”
The absent American
The Yanks, it is often said, used to be more productive. Many of the airports and hospitals still in use on the other side of the Pacific were built by the United States and its allies during World War II.
Some of those old installations have memorial plaques in hidden corners, but the infrastructure has largely fallen into disrepair. Suva-Nausori Airport was built in 1942 by US Navy Seabees. Eight decades later, it seems like not much has changed.
Richard Herr, an American law professor in Australia who has served as a democracy adviser to Pacific countries since the 1970s, said he often wondered why the Solomon Islands’ main airport—known in World War II as Henderson Field, the site of major battles against the Japanese – was never rehabilitated with American technological expertise.
Any American who goes through Honiara will probably ask that question. It is one of the many places in the region where the United States is lacking in action beyond the signs for Coca-Cola.
“The United States has no significant presence in the Pacific at all,” said Anna Powles, 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.”
US officials point out that the United States has large 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, announcing that the United States would reopen an embassy in the Solomon Islands and address issues such as illegal fishing and climate change.
The then acting Prime Minister of Fiji, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, called it an American return and “a very strong philosophical commitment.” The question is whether it is enough.
Mr Blinken said last week that “China is the only country with both the intent to reform the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do so.” He promised that the United States would “form the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision of an open and inclusive international system”.
But that vision in this part of the world got off to a slow start. The Biden administration has taken more than a year to release its Indo-Pacific strategy, which is light on details and heavy on gauze phrases (“maximum beneficial”) that usually make sense in club-like gatherings of men in dark suits. with flag lapel pins.
Even Republicans and Democrats in Congress who agree that something needs to be done to counter China have been bickering over a bill to make the United States more competitive for 15 months — and it still would do little, if anything, for disputed people. places like the Pacific Ocean.
The starting embassy in the Solomons also looks less impressive on closer inspection. Replacing an embassy that was closed in the 1990s during America’s post-Cold War withdrawal, the outpost will begin in leased office space with two U.S. staff and five local employees.
The latest on China: important things to know
Compared to China’s presence in the region, it’s not nearly as strong an increase. In Fiji, for example, the Chinese embassy is centrally located and well staffed with officials who speak better English than their predecessors and often appear in the local news media.
The US Embassy, on the other hand, is located on a hill far from the center of Suva in a heavily fortified complex. It covers five countries (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu), does not have a full-time ambassador – President Biden appointed one just last week – and is known for being understaffed.
Joseph Veramu, a former UN adviser who leads Integrity Fiji, which focuses on values like transparency, said in an interview in Suva that he had invited US embassy officials to events five or six times in recent years. Only once did someone come – without saying much and allowing photos.
“I think they’re very busy,” he said.
The Chinese alternative
Many Pacific countries are not happy about a new era of competition between superpowers. As Matthew Wale, the opposition leader in the Solomons, said in a recent interview, “We don’t want to be the grass trampled by the elephants.”
But what they do want, and what China seems to be able to do better at the moment, is consistent engagement and capacity building.
While the United States has shown how the Coast Guard uses vessels to monitor illegal fishing, China plans to build maritime transportation hubs and high-tech law enforcement centers where Chinese officers can provide expertise and equipment.
While the United States and its allies provide humanitarian aid to Australia and New Zealand — for example, after the Tonga tsunami — China offers thousands of scholarships for vocational training, diplomatic training, and disaster response training, along with “cooperation in meteorological observation.” †
“China has always maintained that countries big and small are all equal,” Mr Xi, the Chinese leader, said in a written message to Pacific foreign ministers on Monday. “No matter how international conditions fluctuate, China will always be a good friend.”
Nations in the Pacific Islands must now decide how much to trust or resist that friendship. Mr. Wang has not yet received support for the most sensitive proposals, including cooperation on customs systems and other government digital operations. In places like Suva, where Pentecostal churches blared songs of praise over thunderstorms, Chinese communism can always be wary.
But Monday’s meeting in Suva was Mr. Wang with Pacific Island leaders over the past eight months, with more planned. It is clear that China intends to continue to emphasize that friendship means building things and making prosperity promises, while expecting news censorship, access to resources and security capabilities in return.
The pressing question in this part of the world is: What does friendship mean to America?
Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Sydney, Australia.
